I was driving through Richland last week, the city where I live, and in front of me was a pickup truck with the following words on its door and tailgate:
City of Richland
CODE ENFORCEMENT
Nuisance Patrol Unit
Nuisance patrol unit!
I didn’t know such an agent existed.
How interesting, I thought. There is an agent patrolling our city and keeping an eye out for code breakers who cause nuisances that burden and encumber neighborhoods. I assumed they took action to correct the cause of any nuisance and thus improve the quality of life for community dwellers.
Then I thought, “How cool would it be for a Nuisance Patrol Unit to be at work in my life so that I didn’t ever have to deal with nuisances that came my way!”
Have you ever felt like someone was causing a nuisance that you had to suffer from? Maybe they stirred up commotion in the workplace, spread rumors, hassled you, spilled coffee on the common lunch table, left a mess for you to clean up…and on and on….
Then I realized, “I do have a Nuisance Patrol Unit already at work on my behalf. It’s the Christ!”
Yep, you have a Nuisance Patrol Unit employed for your benefit too. Christ!
How?
The bigger nuisance we feel in working with others is not their acts, but the negative responses their acts cause to surface in our thinking, such as irritation, annoyance, impatience, criticism, harsh judgment, ill-will, anger, and their kin. These are the greater evildoers that we need to watch out for and not allow to become our own. And Christ is the antidote.
Christ is spiritual mindedness, an attitude of love that quenches any temptation to get wrought over with anger, impatience and critical opinion. When honoring the presence of Christ is a priority for us, we will not be so hasty to allow resentment or ire to seethe and germinate in consciousness. We will love instead, and listen for the voice of Wisdom that tells us how to intelligently and effectively deal with an error that needs correcting.
So, don’t let nuisance-makers get the better of your attitude any longer. Summon your Nuisance Patrol Unit, and put the Christ to work on your behalf. The outcome will be much better than if you ignore the incident or try to fix it on your own.
Beautiful!!! And thank you for the picture of autumn leaves, not so many in AZ
The word “response” has been SO in my thinkin’
this morning.
WHAT, I ask myself, are you responding to? Isn’t God sending you an RSVP? Respond to ME, please! :<)) Thanks, Evan, for reminding me not to respond to the seeming nuisances that would tempt me to respond,
or worse yet, react! (Re-act to them, mull em over, grumble and groan.. A waste of time and opportunity, when one can be hearing God’s lovely messages!)
Love Fall color, too.
Have a God-Day, everyone,
:<)))
Yeah, I get that all the time. Especially when I have 24/7 home care by 4 of the sweetest Nurse Aides ever. So what are the nuisances am I talking about? The constant talking on their cell phones or the gossip behind their backs. How can any one study C/S with such noise? Thank God for Evan’s blog about THE CHRIST being the Nuisance Patrol Unit.
this came at the perfect time. there are a few people hassling me constantly, out to get and harm me seemingly…out for blood….and the manifestation has been a painful hive on my hip bone area that is very swollen….and i cant let them get to me…this helps!!!
Evan, thank you. I’ve leaned so much from your blogs. I only wish that I could take class instruction again and with you. I share your blogs often on my Facebook page and get very good responses. Love this blog too.