Supermarket Girl – Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

Things were so different for Ruth since she had met Jesus. Even friendships had gradually changed. She found herself in a place of peace and joy with no obligations to call anyone or meet up with them regularly. She was free to focus on herself and her immediate responsibilities. Her relationship with her King assured her that she was free indeed. Her King taught her that absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder where true friendship is concerned. Those friends who invoke guilt if you don’t check up on them regularly were burdens that she did not need to carry.

It was the beginning of a new school term and her business was cash strapped. This had become an experience she was having month in, month out for a while now. She had work but clients were not paying like they used to. She had been told that the economy was bad. She refused to believe that her economy was bad even though she had now made it her responsibility to follow up payments from clients – a job her accountant was able to do previously. She insisted on believing that her God is the One in charge of the economy and if that is the case, there is no reason to think that her interests were not protected. Not that her God exercises double standards but He does require us to choose what to believe. It was up to you to choose to believe that the economy is in the hands of men or in the Hands of God. Either way, you reap what you sow.

Even as Ruth believed that God was on the Throne and in control, lately things had gone from bad to worse. She could not take drastic action against her clients for not paying because she still needed the work to continue coming in. She therefore focused her mind on the work and appreciated that new clients and new work had not stopped coming and bringing her new hope.

She had learned some very important lessons at church about financial struggle. She had been despising the fact that she literally had to plead with her clients to pay her. She had lamented to her accountant that their clients had reduced them to beggars. At church she learned that actually she was not a beggar but a servant.

The difference between running a business as a servant rather than a professional is that in servanthood the reward you get comes from God and includes not just financial blessing but also blessings that money cannot buy. If you are serving your clients for the reward that comes from clients, frustration and anger will result when money is hard to come by. A servant serves for the reward of blessings from God and notices that inasmuch as money is not flooding in, the other blessings like life, good health, well behaved children, laughter, security, peace and joy among many others are in plenty. You will also notice that the money does come in when it is needed. During the struggle, Ruth had come to realize that she was a very impatient person and so she had appreciated the struggle as a means for her to learn some patience.

Another lesson Ruth had learned was that a servant of God must not have any fear, anxiety or worry during tough times. Ruth had come to an astounding realization that even when He was nailed on the Cross, Jesus had no fear, anxiety or worry. He was serving His Father. He was fulfilling His life’s purpose. He was strong because He was trusting His Father to provide the peace He needed to weather the storm. If Jesus could be fearless in such a horrendous situation, then Ruth too could be fearless in her situation. She refused to worry or be anxious about the unpaid bills and instead focused her mind on watching out for how God would provide for her.

She thought it was a good thing to live under God’s provision and not take it for granted that payments came from clients. The same way God brought clients is the same way He brought payments. It was therefore important for Ruth to always be thankful that God has provided for her clients so that they can pay her. She also needed to pray for her clients’ salvation and prosperity.

In her walk with God, Ruth had learned that God is indeed controlling every aspect of her life and there really is nothing that she could claim to be automatic. There was once a time she thought some things just happened. But now she believed that God’s effort is in everything that touched her life including all the good things. She needed the disruption in the flow of payments to her business to understand that the flow of money around those who have custody of it is controlled by her King.

The teaching by Jesus that for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God is like a camel going through the eye of a needle was an important one for Ruth. It made her resist riches and enjoy just having enough. She knew that she did not want to amass wealth and she wanted to spend as much as she earned especially on charitable exploits. She prayed to God for wisdom on how to spend the money entrusted to her and direction on what to do with the assets in her custody. She believed that the best way to avoid being rich is to be generous.

Ruth was a deep thinker. She did not have time for small talk or getting to know a guy whose conversations were shallow. She prayed for that guy she met at the supermarket to meet God one day and get to learn how to treat women with respect. Calling a woman names that are the reserve of her husband when you hardly know her is the epitome of ignorance. Ruth was confident that she was not the one who was assigned the job of teaching that guy that valuable lesson. She used to ignore bad vibes in relationships telling herself that she needed to be friends with a difficult person so she could help him or her change but in time she came to learn that difficult people have only one aim in life and that is to take advantage of anyone who is gullible enough to care for them. She had come to finally understand that a relationship that gives a bad vibe at the beginning will only get worse.

Matthew 6:24 – 24 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.