WEDNESDAY

Jeremiah 10:23

• Why is it not up to you to direct your own steps?

“What’s going on?” I asked, panicked. “They wouldn’t close down the restaurant in the middle of the day unless it were important.”

“I don’t know,” my coworker, Trevor, said indifferently. “All I know is that we got told to close early.”

“But why?” I pressed, sure that he knew something he wasn’t telling me.

“I don’t know,” he insisted, shrugging exaggeratedly. “Above my pay grade.”

I learned later that there was a problem with the latest shipment of potatoes–the manager explained in the next day’s staff meeting that they had been contaminated and at the time, it was unclear how much exposure to the food was a threat to the staff. It has since been resolved. I learned an important lesson that day as I reflected on my anxiety about a situation that was out of my control. Sometimes, it’s good that I’m not in control. Because sometimes, things are “above our pay grades.”

Managers are paid more than waitresses because managers are ultimately responsible for things like this. While this is a little intimidating if you’re in the managerial career, you also are much more prepared, educated, and qualified to handle situations like potato contamination than the wait staff! Therefore, the manager’s in charge! 

God has more authority than we do because, ultimately, God’s more qualified to handle… everything! While God is extraordinarily generous in giving us autonomy to make decisions and to have free will, it’s also an enormous blessing to be able to say “that’s above my pay grade,” and hand over stressful things to God. It doesn’t mean that we won’t ever stress, but it does mean that we can have peace from knowing we’re not ultimately in control.