Dying To Self

“Won’t he rather say, ‘prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink’? – Luke 17:8

                I can picture this scene happening in my mind.  The servant coming into the house after an extremely long day at work (all he wants to do is take a nap), yet as soon as he walks in the door his master is giving him another task.  As we saw in verse seven, pretty much no master will say to his servant “come sit, eat and drink with me,” or in other words “I know you’ve had a long day, sit down and eat, I want to say thank you.”  No, he says “get yourself ready.”  Just trying to imagine what it would be like plowing a field all day, the servant is most likely extremely dirty and sweaty.  So, his master says go clean yourself up, because you need to serve me my food and drink.  I wonder what goes through the servants head when he hears this.  Does he wonder if his master ever does anything for himself, if he has ever had to plow a field? Or, is he grateful for the fact that he is able to work? 

                I can think of so many moments in my own life where I just had an extremely long day and I am mentally and physically exhausted.  Yet, people continue to demand things from me and I sometimes can feel as if they don’t even give any thought to what my day was like.  I remember so many times where I thought I had the right to complain, and say I shouldn’t have to do this.   Sometime I would voice this opinion and other times I would just do things with a bad attitude.  There were definitely times that I went into it with a servant’s heart, but it was far from all the time.  I think that it can be easy to fall into the trap of feeling like you are doing people a favor and they should acknowledge that.  I can easily say that when I had bosses that were understanding and encouraging I wanted to work extra time for them and give them my best.  But, then you have the bosses that no matter how hard you work or how well you do, nothing (and I mean nothing) is ever good enough.  It is so hard to continually work with a servant’s heart, a heart of humility and joy, a heart that is working for the glory of God.  Yet, we as Christians are here to represent Christ, we need to die to ourselves daily.  Jesus was the perfect example of humility and servant hood and we need to follow that example.