Wings & Pride

Stick this in your five-year plan and smoke it: in between my long-in-coming graduation from college and my even-longer-in-waiting job start in Denver, I find myself delivering chicken wings. To college students. And drunk people. Oh, let me tell you. I could go on about the lack of general food delivery etiquette that is prevalent in greater East Lansing, but I won’t. Let me simply share these words with my clientele:

1. I don’t think you’re cool because you’re high,
   
2. I’m not impressed that you’re winning beer pong,
   
3. I’m only mildly amused that you don’t actually remember ordering food, and finally,
   
4. “Getting laid” is not a good excuse for not answering the door.

Of course, all of these all-too-common faux pas can be forgiven with a healthy tip of $3-4, maybe more depending on the offense, but never less.

However, the most shocking thing to me so far hasn’t been the guy who was busy “twirkin it” or the girl who almost cried because she was so excited that she ordered ranch dressing- it’s been my crazy impatience, short wick, and…

Pride.

See, I’ve always mildly and proudly (with a very Christian sort of pride) prided (can you use proudly to describe prided?) myself in having a good amount of patience. I’m beginning to see, however, that maybe that’s been something I’ve fashioned for myself as opposed to something I’ve let the Spirit work out in me. For being such a cynical person, it's amazing how quickly I believe my own lies.

You wouldn't believe how impatient I get when I have tips on the line. Sometimes I’ll get stuck behind a particularly slow driver who dared to pull out in front of me, so I’ll race past them and cut them off to show them who’s boss. The funny thing is that I’m too afraid of causing an accident, so I wait till I’m about 50 yards past before I cut back in front of them. Also, I’m concerned about the rising cost of gasoline, so I usually pass at about 3 mph above their current speed. I pretty much accomplish nothing with my misguided violence.

I can also amaze myself with the level of nastiness I can harbor against people who don’t tip well. How dare those jerks (word changed) stiff me on the tip. Just because we say we have free delivery doesn’t mean you don’t have to pay for it!

One night, I had a particularly bad attitude. I was $75.21 short for my car payment due in two days, and tips sucked. The other drivers were getting good tips, and I was getting all of the bad runs. I was driving from edge to edge of the delivery area and getting stuck quite consistently.

One girl’s bill came to $11.93. She gave me 11 $1 bills and exact change. What was once only a thought came spilling out of my mouth: “Wow! Thanks for the great tip!” It shot out of my mouth like bile and tasted about as sweet. She slammed her door as I walked away, dropping the change on the ground. Awesome. Way to engage culture with the salt and light of Jesus blah blah blah!

Then relief seemed to come. I had a good couple of hours. But as was the theme of the evening, I somehow dropped cash somewhere and ended up with a mere $30 in tips for 10 hours of work. I was pissed. And then Jesus showed up in the form of a pregnant girl and her boyfriend.

When I came back from my last run, I was startled to see Sarah (not her real name) and her boyfriend eating wings. I knew her because my brother-in-law met her while serving food to the homeless downtown. He felt compelled to talk to her, and eventually he and my sister were selflessly investing into her life. Feeding her, taking her to doctor’s appointments, teaching her to be healthy, making sure she had shelter- generally sharing Christ’s love with a girl who was hopelessly lost. I knew that she had found out her baby was going to have some major birth defects but decided to go through with the pregnancy.

She looked drained and largely pregnant.

“You must be exhausted!” I said with the cheese only a  male nurse could muster.

“Yeah. I’m so tired.”

“Well hang in there, and good luck! You look great!”

I went to the kitchen, washed dishes, and began to leave. Sarah was still in the front of the shop when I passed back through.

“You obviously didn’t hear. I had the baby, but he only lived for 23 hours. We just came back from the hospital tonight.”

I can’t begin to explain to you what I felt. It went from shock to disbelief that I stuck my foot just that far down my throat. I didn’t know what to do. I muttered some apologies and condolences and hugged her, and stumbled through a couple more minutes of what was probably very awkward conversation. I felt dumb and small and ill-informed and hypocritical and helpless. What was worse is that I knew she could sense it. I could tell she was deeply hurt and hurting and was having trouble really believing my saccharine apology, although she graciously did.

As I walked out of the store, I felt the Spirit of God whispering inside of me. As was my attitude that night, I quickly shut it down. But when I got in my car and began to drive away, I heard that same Spirit scolding me. “Give her your tip money, you ungrateful wretch. It’s too good for you." 

As my car seemed to make the U-turn all on its own, I had my first attitude adjustment of the night. The Spirit took over. I was repentant. I was grateful. For a brief moment, I threw away the self-made conditional patience I had made for myself and exchanged it for the real thing. I had no pride left as I stepped out of my car and handed her the $30.

“I know it’s not much…”

I don’t think she heard me. She threw her arms around me and squeezed so tight and cried. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,…” I was floored.

Humbled.

I drove home that night keenly aware of my shortcomings and false fruits. I prayed that God would continue to point out the walls of pride I had built while deceiving myself that they were fruit. But in the middle of my personal evangelical guilt fest, I praised Him that He counted me worthy of refining. I don’t know if I've felt so humbled and grateful in a long time. God stepped in on my weakness and glorified Himself because I didn’t have the strength to do it.

The next night? I made $75 in tips. Exactly. Now if I could go back and pick up that change…