Favor Ain’t Fair!

Through personal experience, Kekya Davis-Adams shares an excellent lesson for all in what to do and what not to do when you find yourself in God’s  favor overflow.

Favor Ain’t Fair!

Favor is a wonderful thing! When God shows favor, it is unmistakable! It’s almost like magic the way that things unfold in a favor situation. It happens in such a way that the individual receiving it and everyone around them are amazed at it. “How did you manage to get this car without a down payment? Your credit is worse than mine!” That’s favor; and to the person in this scenario with the better credit, favor aint fair!!

I remember a season when my husband and I were in a favor overflow. It’s my favorite testimony; in fact, anybody that knows me has already heard it. It took place in a time when God was doing a complete overhaul on us and our way of thinking, particularly when it came to decision making.

We had been Over the Road Truck Drivers for about three years at that time. Truck drivers have it pretty good when it comes to finding steady work because almost everything in this country is delivered by a truck. In fact, it was so easy for us to get jobs as team drivers that my husband didn’t have to speak to anyone from the company that hired us until we got to their orientation.

The problem with that was (I know you’re thinking ‘how could there be any problems with that?’) we became spoiled, even a little arrogant. We started job hopping. We didn’t give ourselves a chance to establish a good work history because we were always looking for the next best thing! We would be at one company when another driver would tell us ‘hey we’re making this much money over here and we do less work’; once we heard it was a pay raise and less work, the decision was already made.

We didn’t take the time to consult with the Lord before making the decision, we moved on our own. By the third year, we had worked for six different companies which turned out to be an average of two companies per year. Clearly, we were following our own will and not that of the Lords. Our decision to move was always based on some material thing; more money, better trucks, etc.

But our arrogance didn’t stop there! We made yet another decision on our own, but this was no small time decision, it was one that definitely should have been meditated on. We felt that it was time for us to have a normal life, plant roots somewhere. We wanted to be able to go to work and come home the same night like normal people, go to the gym if we wanted, or just have a stove to cook with.

At that time, we didn’t have our own place or even a car because we didn’t need them since we took our home-time in different places. We spent some home time with family, or in places that we’d wanted to visit like Las Vegas or LA. When we got off of the truck, we would rent a car and either stay with relatives or get a hotel room. That was fun for a while but then we realized that we had no roots and made a rash decision to get some.

Here’s where the arrogance came in, we just turned the truck in and went to stay with his mom. We figured that we would have a job in no time because we were truck drivers and truck drivers were always in demand. We thought we’d be at his mom’s house for no more than a few weeks, just enough time to find jobs and a place of our own.

But God had had enough of us making our own decisions and taking him for granted! A few weeks turned into a few months and we were no closer to finding jobs than we were the day we turned in the truck. Finally I was able to get a seasonal position with Fedex delivering packages to residences in a prominent neighborhood. My husband continued to search for a job while I hauled packages bigger and heavier than myself up two and three flights of stairs. I would get him to assist me on days that the packages were going to be too much for me to handle. We both enjoyed the area and hoped that we could move there one day in the future but it seemed farfetched when we couldn’t even find steady jobs.

Meanwhile, my mother in law had been trying to get us to attend church every Sunday, but we barely went. On the weeks that we didn’t attend however, I would give her my tithe and offering money to pay on our behalf.

As the end of the year approached, my husband and I discussed moving to Florida with my mom and trying to find work there. This time I prayed on the decision because we figured out that we were going wrong by making decisions without consulting with God first. The more I prayed, the more I felt that Florida was the place to go.

On the last Sunday of the year, something in my spirit said ‘go to church!’ so I obeyed and went. During the service, the Pastor told everyone to think of people that they wanted to get saved in the New Year. Among other people, I thought of myself and my husband and tears welled up in my eyes. At that moment, I knew that everything was going to be alright!

We packed up and moved to Florida. Within the first two weeks, my husband had a job and we got our own apartment! The following month, I got a job as well. Every morning before going to work, we would play the same gospel song and read Psalms 91. We were not making any decisions without consulting with God first, and even though we both took pay cuts and had to do jobs that did not match our skill level, we were blessed so much so, that we were able to extend an invitation to my brother in law to come and stay with us in hopes that he would find a better life there as well.

We thought that he would have to sleep in our living room as we only had a one bedroom, but God had other plans. A two bedroom apartment in our complex suddenly became vacant and our landlord told us that we could have it. We moved in the same weekend that my brother in law arrived and he didn’t have to spend one night in the living room!

Home life was good, but where God showed the most favor was at our work places. My husband and his co-workers began receiving bonuses and tips that were non-existent before he came to work there. The other two drivers had been with the company for close to eight years and they couldn’t remember getting so much as a Christmas bonus, and tips weren’t even heard of! That’s Favor!!

Meanwhile, I was excelling so well at my job that all of the management was taking notice. They were discussing me in meetings and elsewhere, it got to the point where every Supervisor and Manager knew my name even if they hadn’t met me yet. This all happened in my first two weeks on the job! Favor!

By the second week the decision was made to shut down my department. We came to work one morning and were told to go straight to a conference room. In the conference room, more than forty people were informed that the department was closing down. Five names were called out, mine being one of them, ‘those names that were called, will be asked to stay on and transfer to another department’. Out of the five names that were called, only two of us were new employees, the other three had been with the company for some time and previously worked in the department that we were being transferred to. Favor!!

When I reported to work the following week (we were given a week off) I was finally introduced to my new supervisor. She was the first person in management that I’d come across that seemed not to like me. I had no explanation for it she just didn’t like me from the word go. Although she didn’t display it, I could see it in her face and feel it in the air; she had it out for me.

When the first opportunity to mess with me presented itself, she jumped on it. We were working in a call center and anyone who’s ever worked in one knows that there are a lot of rules. Most of the rules had to do with what you could and couldn’t (mostly couldn’t) do during your shift. No matter how boring, you were not allowed to read a book or magazine. For me this was torture since I suspect that I am slightly ADHD.

But I found a loophole, although you couldn’t read, you could color. Coloring may be regarded as a child’s activity, but I love to color. I thought that it must have been a typo; coloring is far more distracting than reading. Not only is it distracting, but even I had to say that it was a bit juvenile for a work place so I verified it with one of the supervisor’s and she confirmed that it was so. I was so excited about it that I went out and bought myself some coloring books and crayons that very night!

For a few days I was allowed to color in peace but of course that had to come to an end. After an incident that I had with my supervisor that left her feeling a bit stupid, she told me that I wasn’t allowed to color. I pointed out that the handbook stated we could in fact, color at our desks. She proceeded to tell me that rule was only for people that had been employed for over 90 days because it was thought that new people couldn’t handle both learning the job and coloring. I’d like to point out that this was a call center not NASA! And I was already doing just as well as the people that had been working there for years, that it is why I was chosen to stay and why the managers were singing my praises!

Needless to say, I was not planning on taking her word for it. I asked her to show me where it stated that the coloring policy did not take effect until after 90 days and of course she couldn’t. She decided to take the mother approach of ‘because I said so’, and I decided to go over her head. It wasn’t so much that I wanted to color that bad, it was the principal. You can’t make rules up as you go along, that’s why the handbook was made.

I went to the Operations Manager – who unlike my supervisor, liked me very much- with the issue and he overruled her. He told me that he’d take care of it. She didn’t look happy when she came out of his office, and the silent war was on! She went to her supervisor and basically made her feel as though I went over both of their heads, which turned her against me as well.

She called me into her office and basically said that I would lose my job if I continued to color. Not in those words but that was the message. I was angry when I left her office, for someone to take a personal situation far enough to try and jeopardize another person’s job was more than my flesh wanted to take. But instead of going off on them like the old me would have done, I went back to my desk and said a prayer and gave the entire situation over to God. It was all so petty that I decided to take my coloring stuff home and give her no ammo to try and use against me.

From that point on, I made it a personal mission to excel at my job and give God the glory. I continued to look for another position, one that was more on my qualification level but they were scarce in the post 911 economical climate. Eventually, I was offered another call center position. This position had two pros, more money, and I would be away from her. I prayed on it before hand and then turned in my resignation. I could see the delight in her eyes even while she tried to maintain a straight face when saying how much they would miss me and my great work performance, but she understood that I had to do what was best for me.

Not more than an hour went by before she had me back in an office (she didn’t have one of her own). I instantly noticed that the smile was gone from her eyes when I sat down. These were her exact words: ‘I went to Paul (Operations Manager) to give him your resignation, and he told me to offer you a dollar raise to get you to stay.’ I almost fell out of my seat! It had to be so hard for her to get those words out of her mouth, but God says ‘I will make your enemies a foot stool.’ Favor!!!

Although the dollar raise was still less than the other company offered, I decided to stay because I figured that this was a job that appreciated me for my effort and that’s hard to come by.

Things between my supervisor and I remained the same except for the fact that she was acting even more phony than usual by pretending to like me on most days. But as the saying goes, God will use your enemies to bless you, less than two months later, she was forced to give me yet another raise. This raise was for my performance review, and she told me not to expect a raise because I had just received one. But my review called for a raise and I decided that God had the final say so on whether or not I received it. So as she was telling me not to expect one, I said this prayer: ‘Heavenly Father, I know that all things are yours and therefore man does not decide my inheritance but you only.’ Favor!!!!

And finally, we had a companywide meeting where we were told that we would begin to get paid based on our experience which means that I was entitled to yet another raise. Immediately after that meeting, I went to her and informed her that I was due a raise based on the new rule and once again she informed me not to look for a raise because I had received two in less than a year. And once again I said my prayer and believed that it was not her decision but the Lords.

For the third time in less than one year of employment with this company, I sat across from a lady that couldn’t stand me, while she informed me that I would in fact see a raise on my next paycheck!!! Favor aint fair!!!!!

EPILOGUE

During the year and a half that we lived in Florida, my husband and I learned some tough lessons. Lessons in humility, how to live on a budget, and most importantly, how to rely on God!! We also learned the truth in the saying, if he can trust you with a little; he can trust you with a lot.

Exactly one in a half years after moving to Florida, we moved back to North Carolina. But this time, we didn’t have to stay with his mom. We moved into the very neighborhood that we daydreamed about one day moving into. When I thought of moving here, I thought it was at least five or ten years away. But that just goes to show that our timeline has nothing to do with God’s!!! Not only that, but we got better jobs also, doing things aligned with our experience and making the money we expect.

When you put your trust in him, and put him first the sky is the limit!! I’m living proof that favor aint fair!!!!!

I’d like to dedicate this testimony to my Grandfather Granville Armstrong. Aside from my earthly father Brian Anthony Davis Sr., you are the most important and influential man in my life! You are the perfect head for our family and our rock!

I look forward to our Sunday phone calls because you are so filled with wisdom, love and humor. I come away from each and every conversation a little wiser and feeling lots of love!! So I thank you Gramps, for being my rock, confidant, and best friend!!

Copyright © 2012 Kekya Davis-Adams