AGG

John 16:21

A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.

AGG!  I think I invented this word 30 years ago when I was a car salesman.  AGG is what I called aggravation.  When I was too aggravated to speak correctly, I would say AGG instead of ‘I am handling a piddly little problem’.  Someone would ask me why I was visibly upset, and all I could say was AGG and rush off,, and they understood.   My problems were usually because the finance lady or tag lady was pesterring me on something trivial that they needed from a customer who bought a car 2 months ago.  Well, that was my point of view as a salesman.  Everything except closing the deal was AGG, in my selfish opinion.  To the finance lady, or the title clerk, or the customer who was waiting on his new car plates, it was probably pretty important.  At that time I sold around 30 cars a month. My last month I sold 60 new retail units.  I quit because the AGG was mind boggling.  There was no joy after the sale, only AGG.

We got a shipment of Bibles this week. A crate is just as expensive and time consuming to bring in as a whole container.  So, 2 weeks of complete AGG, and 600 dollars later, and   we got the crate of Bibles through port and customs.  This afternoon we have been  happily handing out Bibles and religious material. The JOY of giving out a new Bible to someone who has never owned one before, of giving a sunday school teacher materials for the next year, or a child his first back pack filled with great stuff, totally outweighs the AGG.  This morning I woke up with my stomach churning, in a cold sweat about this crate of Bible.  Now the JOY of blessing other people totally outweighs it. As a matter of fact, I can’t even remember the AGG that pervailed my life a mere 12 hours ago.

Kind of like life, followed by heaven. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:17   For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;

The glory, the joy, of heaven, FAR outweighs the AGG that we go through in this life.  It kind of makes the problems we go through in this life a little easier to bear doesn’t it? When we get in a shipment, I deal with the AGG because I know the blessing is coming. It is the same as anything else that we have to deal with.  We deal with it, because of the glory and joy that await us.

Just pray that I remember it when I am in the heat of battle.