TROUBLERS

Have you had people get under your skin, needle you, or try to get you upset?  At one time or the other we all have some which aggravate us.

My friend has some people who do him this way.  He told me it wasn’t that he didn’t like them; they just kept on at him.  What could be a great friendship wasn’t turning out as he had hoped. They show up at his ranch unannounced and ask a myriad of questions.  He told me he didn’t mind answering some questions, but he had work to do and did not have time to sit for several hours of chit-chat.

Another showed at his ranch fussing and carrying on how his cattle broke down his fence and got into his pasture.  As it turned out, it wasn’t my friend’s cattle, but someone else’s, and not his fence at all.  Agitators indeed.

“Grandfather held a revival in a community where some profane men decided to break up his meeting.  In his first sermon, one of the men stood up and shouted, ‘Louder!’  Accordingly, there being no public address system, grandpa raised his voice.  A little later the man stood and yelled again, ‘Louder!’  And louder grandpa got until surely everybody could hear.  But shortly the man stood again and roared, ‘Louder!’”

It was then that grandpa stopped his sermon and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, the day will come when this old world will quit turning, the sun will cease to shine, the stars will fall and explode, and Gabriel will blow the trumpet so loud that it will be heard around the world; and at that time I’m sure one in this crowd will stand up and holler, ‘Louder!’”

One doesn’t have to be able to make a speech to interrupt one.  Nor does one need to be talented to stir up strife.  Neither does a person need to be a seamstress to needle somebody.  Being human, you are more sensitive than a piece of cloth, and smarter, so don’t let the pricks show.

Be calm. Keep cool.  Keep your head, for if it gets to be a battle of wits, you will need it.

“You have no control over frustraters, hecklers, needlers and agitators, but you can control yourself and refuse to allow bitterness to spring up within you and trouble you even more than what some person does and says.”                  ~ Leroy Brownlow

“But there be some that trouble you.”      (Galatians 1:7)

 Eileen Light