“Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.” Psalm 42:5

It was a call that I dreaded… but had to make. The internet server had flooded and there was no internet. Now that the house is no longer a VRBO rental, I don’t need the internet. I needed to call and cancel service and stop auto-pay. I called and got some bubbly lady from a place like Taiwan. “I HELP YOU… NO WORRIES!”

The conversation was filled with her dialog as she babbled on, at high speed, beginning with my ‘options.’ Even though I told her I didn’t need options and only wanted to cancel service, she kept telling me how I could stay their customer for free for 6 more months! I was both conflicted and convicted… ‘conflictigated!’

I wanted to be kind… TRIED to be kind. But her goal to keep me giving money to their company was in conflict with my need to stop being billed for something I no longer needed. My other priority was to maintain a Christian attitude and not get mean or ugly. She was really pushing my patience and boundaries.

To ‘act like a Christian’ is the hardest thing I deal with on a daily basis. I think… because everybody has a different opinion on what that really means and looks like. How tolerant do I need to be? How giving and yielding to someone else’s desires? God has standards that conflict with reality sometimes. What to do?

There are times I feel like this with God too. I think He wants one thing… but it could be another. Often ‘silence’ from Him goes on until I finally see the big picture. I’m not alone. Today’s verse is repeated 3 times in Psalm 42 and 43. Jesus Himself had a version of it in Psalm 22. Conviction in Conflict is tough!

In the end, I managed to get what I needed done… done. And she didn’t hate me. But it took 20 minutes, and a lot of patience during the conflict, to maintain my convictions as a believer. As the world becomes more difficult, I see that I am going to face more of these situations. How do YOU handle them?