Do not repay evil with evil
or insult with insult.
—1 Peter 3:9
They filled their cups at the coffee bar. One paid for both and politely thanked the cashier, who didn’t respond.
“Sullen dude, isn’t he?” said his friend.
“Oh, he’s that way every day,” he shrugged.
“Then why do you continue to be polite to him?”
“I’m not going to let him decide how I act?”
The operative word is act. Some of us react.
When we return rudeness for rudeness we are reacting; surrendering control of our conduct.
Don’t let your spiritual temperature be regulated by another’s emotional thermostat, but by who you are and whose you are.
Don’t let another’s disposition
determine yours.