Not so nice

I am un-apologetically Christian.  I have a burden and a calling to be good to everyone.  I must live “right”. What I am definitively NOT held to is being “nice”.

I was talking to my mentor recently and she was explaining a business situation involving another party.  They had been discussing this deal for close to a year.  As she and the party finalized the deal and she gave the final contract them, they abruptly required that she lessen all her terms and cut the amount of the deal by thousands of dollars…with no real reason. The stipulations were not at all unfair and they had been discussing the exact same things for quite some time. When she would not accept less from the party involved, they got upset and responded to her “What happened? Everyone told me you were a nice Christian lady!”

I was speaking with a friend who was troubled by the fact that an ex had contacted them angry because my friend hadn’t reached out to them for their birthday.  The ex was an ex because they lied and swindled their way through the relationship, and it ended definitively. Yet, the ex was convinced that the “nice Christian” person would have forgiven and forgotten and at least given them well wishes.  My friend was more concerned about ensuring that the evil spirit that they had gotten rid of didn’t come back with its seven cohorts; swiftly ended the call and changed their number once again.

Let me make something very clear. Being nice and being Christian are not synonymous…especially in the context that people think.  People think they can get away with anything because you’re a “nice Christian”. People think you have no scruples or standards and that you assuredly won’t have any stipulations on the way people should treat you personally or in business. You’ll just go with whatever flow they want…even to your own physical, spiritual, and mental detriment.  Cause that makes you “nice”.

I ain’t that one.