Anxiety Issues

"Moral dilemmas are situations where two or more moral values or duties make demands on the decision-maker, who can honor one of them, and thus will violate at least one important moral concern, no matter what he or she decides to do" (Kvalnes, 2015, p. 17).

Years ago I had a job selling newspapers over the phone. Yes, I was one of those annoying telemarketers but have since repented of the practice, lol!

I was pretty good at the job and usually exceeded my quota. The managers at those types of jobs, listen in on the conversations to help improve their representative's sales. One day, the manager called me into his office and complimented me on how well I was doing. I thought I might be in store for a bonus, but then he dropped the bomb.

He said that I needed to lie to the customers in order to make more sales so that he could have a bigger bonus! I told him I wasn't going to lie, especially since I was exceeding my quota, and I especially wasn't going to lie just to make him wealthier. He said that he wanted me to lie or get fired. I looked him in the eye and took his puny power away by saying, I quit. It was right around the time of Dolly Partons song, "Take this Job and Shove It"!

I told him that I didn't need to lie to be successful and that he was going to learn the same lesson because I was calling the newspaper's president and telling him about our conversation. (The newspaper subcontracted the company the manager and I worked for).
He was an arrogant son of a gun and acted like he didn't care but I could see in his eyes the look of fear at the thought of me calling the President. I walked out and called the main office and told the president exactly what happened. He said he would take care of it and that he was sorry that I had to make that choice. I suppose I could have stayed on but I was young and felt more intent on keeping my integrity than working for an organization that was willing to lie for money.

Proverbs 29:25 states, "The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe" (ESV). Interestingly, verse 24 says this, "The partner of a thief hates his own life; he hears the curse, but discloses nothing". In other words, stealing is a form of self-hatred and poor self-worth, even if we don't do the stealing but are in some way a partner to the thief.

The word fear in verse 25 means anxiety, and I had plenty of anxiety to carry with that decision. On the one hand, I needed a job, but I needed to keep my own sense of worth and dignity more than the job. I could always find another job, but that moment in time to love myself with Gods love would never be available again. I also had to deal with the anxiety of my then-wife, who went to church but had no qualms about lying to get ahead. She criticized me for not lying and keeping the job, but I knew I had made the right choice. There were other people in my life at the time who thought I was a lazy bum, so I had the anxiety of their disdain and disapproval of my choice.

The word snare has two meanings one is a noose or an animal snare and something that causes personal injury. We can't avoid anxiety coming to us, it is part of the fall and human condition. I've known many a word of faith, or charismatic Christian that was so obsessed with avoiding all fear that they actually created their own anxiety about feeling any fear!

When the scripture says, fear not, it is not commanding us to never fear but is instructing us to consciously replace fear when it does come and choose faith. Choose love for God, self, and others and the fear will subside and eventually have no power in your life. But to attempt to avoid fear completely is an exercise in futility.

Anxiety in this verse is still nothing to take lightly, however. The anxiety of others opinions traps us like an animal. An animal in a snare is no longer free to run around in the forest. It is no longer free to hunt where it wishes or to drink water from its favorite watering hole. It is trapped and facing extinction. The personal injury we experience may be subtle but still devasting. We experience a loss of our true self and especially our true moral self. We also experience a loss of self-respect or self-love. Think about this from a Biblical perspective. If God states that a man should love his wife as he loves himself, then he goes to work and lies in order to make a living for his wife, is he truly loving himself and his wife? Doesn't he have enough confidence in himself to find a job that does not create cognitive dissonance and toxic guilt; which he then brings home to his wife, if only on a subconscious level.

Peter implores us to cast our care upon the Lord for he cares for us. Trusting in Gods love when we are faced with a moral dilemma may seem foolish at times but it always works out for the good of society. I think that man got fired, and I'm now doing God's purpose for my life, which is to write about spiritual, psychological, and moral issues through what I have learned educationally and experientially.

Blessings.

Reference
Kvalnes, Ø. (2015). Moral Reasoning at Work: Rethinking Ethics in Organizations [Google Books].