Zephaniah 3:14-20

When I was a in high school we had this one friend and he was a nice enough guy, he was part of the school’s bible club and all that. He was part of our circle of friends, we would hang out. and when we would hang out everything about this kid was fairly normal, I mean he had his quarks, but who doesn’t. but then one day, a couple of us went to eat breakfast on a Saturday morning and that was when his crazy came out.

He ordered his food like a normal person. When the check came he paid his portion like a normal person. We had to pay everything in cash in those days. But he was fine. Then it came to the tip. And he didn’t want to put something in for the tip. He thought our tip was too high and he didn’t want to pay it. I think in those days it was typically 15-18%, today normal is a bit higher. But that was what it was. It wasn’t a crazy amount.

SO we all go around trying to convince this guy to pay his fair share, but he didn’t want to. He wouldn’t budge. Now if that’s where it ended, that would be bad. But there are cheap people in the world and I don’t know maybe he didn’t bring money for a tip. Perhaps he was just arguing about it because he didn’t want us to know that was all he had. Him not wanting to properly tip wasn’t the crazy part.

What was crazy was that when the rest of us ponied up to pay his portion of the tip, he tried to reach into the pot, into the center of the table to take back some of the money he paid for his own food. The emotion of seeing that kind of behavior was odd. Because you are angry, a little. But you are also confused. Why is he acting like this? Why doesn’t he like the waitress. I mean, we were just like, who is this guy? We didn’t let him take his money back and I don’t think we ever ate at a restaurant with him, not one with a waiter anyway. It was just so strange. It was bizarre. Why would someone treat a waitress like that.

We see that from time to time. Your friends with someone and they seem normal enough but then you see the way they treat other people, people that they think are below them and you get shocked. Why doesn’t he treat me like that.