God's Math

"Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ." - Philippians 3:8 (NLT)

Hanging up the phone with my left hand getting tired after getting an update on the inmates that were admitted in the hospital, I asked for permission from the night charge nurse if I could go briefly to our ODR (Officer’s Dining Room) and I had a taste for coffee which was unusual for me to drink while at work.

The other nurse working with me, upon hearing that I was going to get a cup wanted to tag along, too. So, off we both went. What was puzzling was he never usually said anything let alone, he wanted to go with me which would mean conversation would be inevitable.

Sensing he wanted to vent out, he sort of talked about some frustrations about co-workers how some were lazy and some were abusing their power. I could feel for him as I was involved in a battle with some in positions and the silent war was not known except between myself and those others involved.

“I know,” agreeing with his statements. “Nothing new. It’s been that way. I had never been so grateful than when I was blessed with this job,” I uttered.

“Sad to say, the problem is always about the people.”

Tracing our steps back to the Infirmary down a long hallway, with him balancing 2 styrofoam cups of coffee on his right hand as I held on to the lid of my coffee, I felt not the warmth of the coffee but more of the warmth of our conversation and was glad that he opened up. I was beginning to know a little more about his attitudes since we started a new schedule this year and I was glad to be included with the people I ended up working with most of the time. It was a new thing tried out to encourage everyone to have a better working relationship.

“If only people would learn to compromise and truly look for the good and not the bad, it would have been the best job,” I stated as he nodded his head in agreement and took a careful sip from the warm liquid.

People had talked about him being lazy. But I never agreed since I started working with him and found out that he worked as hard as the rest of us. That’s the problem at work. People love to believe “hear says.” They forget that there are always 2 sides to a story. One side always seem so true not until you hear the other side.

“How many updates did you do?” he asked, changing the topic.

“Man! There’s more admits tonight. I had to call for 15 inmates.”

15. A number. Sounds like a lot. I also screened almost a 100 health screen forms, approving those who could be transferred to our other prisons if our main jail needed to make room for newly-arrived prisoners. To others, that would be a lot. But for me who did more at the hospital I used to work in for almost 10 years, that would mean nothing. An easy kind of work for those of us who did more hard work at the hospital.

At work, they look at those numbers for our supervisors to know how much work our shift does. The higher the number, it meant more work was done. Yet, those numbers would never reflect the quality of work applied by many of us. Some did them fast without complaining. Some did them slow and took work for granted while doing other idle and useless things.

People forget there is a Boss Who looks at everything and sees everything. With numbers or no numbers, He knows what transpires every time. If people can only learn from Him and truly know Him, every work will be able to create a masterpiece. Oh, how I pray for His love to cover our workplace, touching each person’s heart! For only then those numbers will have a meaning as a result of changed hearts -  hearts that if only can learn to surrender to His love will gain His rich spiritual blessings instead of counting it as a loss. For in God’s Math, the “cross” resembles the “plus” sign in this world’s math. So, everything is a “plus” if people’s hearts open up and allow God’s love to be poured into theirs.