Never Known

A few days ago I was talking with a friend who had recently been a customer in the store I work at. She happened to come in on my day off so she began telling me about her wonderful customer experience, and she mentioned who had helped her. I explained that the person who helped her was the store manager. My friend couldn't believe it. So I said, “Really,” inquiring on what made her say that. I smiled. I already knew. It was the first thing I noticed when I started working there. She explained how he was so helpful, took the time to help her pick out clothes for her grandchildren, and then even rang her up at the register. She said, “Most General Managers would have just had someone else do that for them. I would have never known.”

Wow. She would have never known. It hit me that that is the best compliment I could ever receive. Most of us work really hard to obtain a higher status. We place a ton of significance on our titles and we want everyone to know who we are and what we do when we get there. We get caught up in being defined by it and we forget that with an increase in position we actually gain more responsibility. Our titles don’t make us who we are, our behavior does. I mean just because you are called a leader doesn't mean you lead or that people are following you. You have to be willing to do anything for them, to support them and set the example of what you expect them to do. If you are not willing to live it out every single day, rolling up your sleeves and getting your hands dirty, how can you expect others to?

Isn't that what God did?  The King of the universe, Creator of all things, the very breath of Life. He left His perfect home and put skin on to walk among His people. He came and set the example in His day to day life, coaching and teaching along the way. He stopped to dine with sinners to which I am the worst. He displayed incredible humility being born in a stable rather than the palace He deserves. He washed the feet of His disciples expecting nothing in return. He got involved in the messy lives of prostitutes and tax collectors lifting their eyes and clearing their name. He gave them a new identity at the cost of His own, right in front of some big name people that most of us would try to impress. He performed incredible miracles to which many of them He told them to keep secret. How many of us would turn water into wine and not brag about our amazing gift to which others should bow?

Many of us want the status but we don’t want the cost. We want to be teachers, lawyers, doctors, pastors and managers until the phone rings and someone has a problem. But isn't it amazing that our great example did nothing out of vain conceit, but in humility considered others better. He looked not to His own interest but to the interest of others. Jesus, being in the very nature God, yet did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of servant, being made in human likeness. He humbled himself and became obedient to death- even death on a cross.

Every day I go to work I have to ask myself, “Who am I willing to die for?”  However, in order to answer that I have to first be willing to die to myself so that I can serve the people around me. It is not easy. I have to be willing to leave the throne of which I made myself the queen and walk among His people. I have to remember that I am the worst sinner and that I was not made a saint by my own doing. Therefore, when people are messy I will offer to wash their feet and when I perform a “miracle” I will not expect accolades or rewards. The price I am called to pay is a gift to which I give freely. I will endure the cost despite any title to which I pray most will have never known.