A Thorn in My Flesh

Few people gets on my nerve, but here is one exception.

I have a colleague from PRC who sticks to me like a leech, not for goodwill, but to check on what I do and the way I do it, so to criticize and disrupt my work. He is the reason I wrote new rules concerning administrative requests for change.

Several months ago, I was at People's Park with my wife booking for my trip to Russia, when he pops in from nowhere, interrupts my conversation with the tour consultant, and asked me things which doesn't concern me. Even the tour consultant was shocked at his behavior and questions my wife who that was to interrupt.

In the office, he nags at me from time to time, as if I owe him a living, simply because he wants a few words change in a document, unconcerned how busy I am in doing other more important things. Though he has the soft copy of the file, but he simply will not lift a finger to do the needed change, and yet in the meantime, he makes changes to everything else in that same document. When I finally change what he wants, he tells me he already has a different version of the document and wants me to combine my changes to his document. All these take time and disrupt my workflow, wasting unproductive time.

Recently, he shifted house from near office to somewhere else, but that does not concerns me, nor am I interested to know where. However, I soon found out on the MRT train this morning. He entered the train a station after mine. I was appalled. There goes my pleasant mornings where I either rest or read my books. This colleague of mine is like a thorn in my flesh, the person who makes me fail to meet my deadlines for the projects I am working on, and reason I have to answer to my boss for my failure to meet the schedules.

I am not a saint, and though I try my best not to dislike people and usually gets along pretty well with people of all cultures, I must say I fail in this. Therefore, like what Paul has said, I must learn to endure, to rely on God and seek His grace ...

2 Corinthians 12:7-9 (NAS)

... for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me - to keep me from exalting myself!

Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.