No room for complaining (or "The Return of Haley's Comet" for Chuck)

I always am complaining. Not necessarily verbally, but in my head, I always find it difficult to stay in a state of contentment. Especially at work. The life of a car salesman is not easy. I get to work between 8:15 and 8:30 and unlock the gate and building, get cars out on the grass and try to eat some dry mini wheats before everyone else gets there. I try to send some emails from one of our customer internet lead managers as they are time sensitive in the hope that they may respond and it's not some 12 year old wasting time on the internet looking at cars. Keep in mind that every lead counts as a percentage of cars sold during the month whether or not the person is a buyer or not. It gets frustrating to say the least.

The bad part is that Missy and I have always been taken care of financially. It's been more than tight, but God has been providing for us, especailly in the last few months. In June I sold 25 cars. That's the most cars sold and the most money made I've ever done in a month. God was gracious to me and I was overwhelmed. I started thinking that I've got this whole dependence thing down to a science. That I wasn't going to worry, fret, or complain about money or my sales anymore. That is until I went the first 7 days of July and didn't sell a single car! Seven days without a sale may not seem like much, but it's kinda like dog years. One week is like a month. On top of that I had numerous car and van repairs that had to be done. So there I went again, getting my bowels in an uproar (I would say "panties in a wad", but that really sounds unmasculine) and forgetting my dependence on my Sovereign. The month ended with 17 cars out in 3 weeks. But it was hard to really feel deserving of that feat. Especailly when I didn't trust for the first 3 weeks of the month.

I also complain about customers. Now I know that because I'm a car salesman, I'm ranked just under lawyers on the trustworthy career ladder. I'm automatically a liar and a scam artist. Just yesterday another salesman asked me a product question about a window sticker. Seemed a feature to a truck was listed on the sticker, but wasn't actually on the truck. I looked at his customer dead in the eye and said it was a misprint. Because I actually thought it was. When the salesman and the customer realized it wasn't a misprint, but that that feature had been taken off as a standard feature and replaced with an upgrade, do you know what the customer said? "Man, I didn't think for a second that that guy (me) was a typical used car salesman. He looked me right at me with all confidence and told me that junk. And I believed him!" The point? He thought I was simply doing what car salesmen do. . . purposely lying! He didn't even consider that I made a mistake. Nope, I was just lying. So I've learned to live with that fact.
I had another customer that took 3, count them 3, hours of my time (one of those hours was after we'd already closed) and didn't buy a car! They say we're theives and liars, but these people wanted a car for half price and said that they'd buy from me. Like I said frustration is a part of the lifestyle.

But if I hold to the theology that I claim to belive in, then none of that should really matter. If I believe that God is totally and completely in control of every molecule that exist and every inclination of every man and woman's mind and heart, then I have no room to be mad or frustrated or depressed or to complain. Job said that God does great things, he brings the rain. If I wrote down everything it takes for a drop of moisture from the Mediterranian Sea 300 miles to a farmer in the form of a drop of rain, that wouldn't seem like a mundane statement. So there I sit at a car lot day in and day out, the bottomless abyss of depravity, sulking like a pouty 5 year old. God still decides to pull me through and bless me. I trust and then go right back into the spiral of disbelief and self centeredness. Very frustrating. Almost laughable if it wasn't so sinful.