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Recently someone behaved rudely toward me, which wouldn't ordinarily be a big deal, except this person, based on their faith profession, should know better. Behave better. Be better than that.
I stewed for days over it. This person was supposed to be in my corner, yet I was forced to hold myself together under a shocking display of rudeness.
This cactus-like personality belongs to a group I call "prickly people." We all have at least one in our lives —those who jab and poke at anything we say and do that they don't approve of. We brace ourselves when they show up in our notifications or inbox, wondering what they’ll say this time to make us want to run away and quit everything. They seem to be on a self-assigned mission to make sure we're always "getting it right."
I like to think of such individuals as “cake testers.” They are divinely purposed to let us know if we're “done yet.”
Inserted into the skin of someone wanting to hear from God, “well done,”* cake testers are extremely useful. Any of us can think we have arrived at spiritual maturity until a cake tester comes along and pokes us, sometimes sticking deep. What comes back out is telling of how much longer we need to remain in the furnace of affliction.
Usually I react to getting poked. I complain bitterly and gather my pitiers around me. I fume. I want to hurl the cake tester like a javelin, as far away from me as I can. But what good would that do me?
Bread is of no use to feed the hungry if it’s not done yet. Got a cake tester in your life? A prickly person? Thank God for him or her. Unless you want to be a gooey, half-baked loaf, unfit for the world God has placed you in to bless.
*Matthew 25:23