Faith and Business 101: That little thing called grace

I am continually shocked at the severe lack of grace I see around me. Because most of the circles I run in are full of other Christians I would hope that peace, friendship, community, thankfulness, and most of all grace, would be the coloring of all they say and do. Most unfortunately I have discovered, of myself and everyone around me, is that even though we are saved sinners, we cannot get rid of that last part, no matter how much we try.

Any job is not without its challenges and its frustrations, adding a job onto taking care of children and trying to balance everything from home can double the frustration at times. If you work with others who also work from home, you will indeed hit speed bumps.

In all our lives we will be both in the giving and receiving ends of frustrations at times. Recently I had been trying for several weeks to get a company to get back with me on the reimbursement I was to receive from doing several things for them. I kept getting sporadic emails here and there, trying to help but never really helping, and then there would be long periods of nothingness in between. In all honesty I was getting extremely upset and frustrated with the company. Instead of just sending off a huge rant, however, I was, as a co-worker likes to call it, “pleasantly persistent”. Explaining my frustration I also tried very hard to put myself into their shoes and give them all the benefit of the doubt. As a result I ended up getting my compensation doubled, and a very profuse apology, and both parties were happy in the end.

In a different situation recently there were several errors caused by simple mistakes by others but that looked like they were coming from me/my company. All could be easily explained, and while we were sorry for the problems they caused, there was really nothing we could have done to change them. In a couple of different situations we had people get a hold of us and just rail into us, saying all sorts of mean things and accusing us–how awful did it make us feel and how we didn’t want to do anything to help after that! Of course, we did, but they were just making a hard situation harder.

As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. – 1 Peter 4:10

So next time you are in a frustrating business related situation, whether on the giving or receiving end, try to extend grace to the other person and be careful of how you approach the situation. “A soft answer turneth away wrath” and you never know when you’ll need grace yourself!

Copyright © Nicole Elliott, Moms of Faith, All Rights Reserved