Negotiation is not an easy road to navigate. I travel mine with optimistic expectations, and yet wonder if those hopes will even be heard or considered. It's difficult to detach the feelings that support the offer. It's difficult when you feel defensive because what you've done as been deflated and devalued. It's difficult to negotiate when trust is lacking from the start. But those are feelings and have no part of working out a deal. It's time to stick to the plan, point out the facts, get down to the figures. It's time to be the calm, to be the rational one. It's time to take the high road, to be the person of integrity you know yourself to be. It's time!
I had to pause for a moment, as I began reading the text this early morning. But they, our fathers, acted arrogantly: they became stubborn and would not listen to Thy commandments." (Nehemiah 9:18). How often do I find myself verbalizing "but? what about? what then? what if? really?" All the phrases that feed doubt and angst into my life are found in that one conjunction. Memory stands as the faithful argument against it, but when faced with future days all seems easily forgotten. This verse comes to a people who had returned to their homeland after being ravaged and exiled by foreign powers. Nehemiah is reminding them of who they are, and especially of their one and only God who has forever been faithful to them despite their faithlessness and wrongdoing. He reminds them how God is a God of forgiveness, slow to anger, longsuffering, overflowing with lovingkindness, never forsaking them even when He was totally forgott...
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