We like to talk about ourselves.  We’re often offended if friends don’t ask us about ourselves or our current situation.  Most of us know that look on a friends face (or our own!) that says “Please hurry and finish that sentence because I don’t want to interrupt you, but I’m just gonna have to if you don’t pipe down soon!” If you are talking to someone, who talks more about you, you or them?  If you are going through some tough stuff, how do you want the conversation to go?

I had the wonderful pleasure of meeting a warrior of the Lord this week.  I was there to serve her.  She dealt the lion’s share of the offering that day.  She was peaceful and faithful, she was needy and honest, she knew and enjoyed community (I tend to find that very attracting of late), she believed in the power of prayer.  And she wasn’t on a stage or TV show, she wasn’t seeking her own interests, she wasn’t whining or complaining, she wasn’t much more or less than Christ-like.

She had quite a few needs.  I asked her about them, not sure she would ever bring them up if I hadn’t.  We prayed over her, for her family and health and witness. There was a lot to pray over.  And then she turns to me, the one who was supposed to be the “giver” to her “taker,” and she so very genuinely asked me, “Now how are you doing today?” I had food in the pantry.  I had no overwhelming medical bills, my hips work and my kid’s names are written in the Lambs Book of Life.  And she asks me how I’m doing.  Humility is an awesome thing if you ever get to see it purely.

Peter was nearing the end, he was preparing daily to put off his tent.  (2 Peter 1:3) He could have complained and asked people if they knew someone who knew someone who might be able to stay his execution.  He could have talked incessantly about how he felt about what he knew was happening.  He could have recounted his emotional journey and regaled us with his spiritually profound acceptance of God’s divine plan.  He could have.  But he didn’t.

He so downplayed his own dire situation that he called his impending execution simply “my departure.”

Humility says, yep my situation stinks and it’s cold in here and I’m starving, but what is it all for in the grand scheme, why am I going through this and how can I make sure that steals the show?  I don’t see much of that these days.  And I’m looking in that mirror for it all the time.

He was so selflessly preoccupied with making sure he had taken care of all that his Jesus had given him to do, that he didn’t even seem to notice himself.  Do you see how that works?  When we are busy about God’s plan, ours doesn’t really matter very much.

Give generously and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything that you put your hand to.                                                                             Deuteronomy 15:10

When the plan doesn’t revolve around us, we pick the right work to give generously to.  When we pick the right work to do, God gets involved with it. When God gets involved with the work, it’s blessed.  And it all starts with humility, relegating your desire to be catered to to God’s desire to be glorified.

Lord, let me serve like Peter!  Let me not be preoccupied as I so often am with the me and the now and the schedule and the temporal.  Let me look to others interests like your warrior daughter does.  Bless the works of our hands, Lord, as we take our eyes off of ourselves, surrender our need to be heard and considered and deferred to, and give generously to that which you’ve called us to labor.

Attempt to lose yourself in the needs, desires, and even whims of someone else today.  Let us work at it!  Let us put forth energy necessary for growth in selflessness.  Exercise your selfless preoccupations and let’s give ourselves over to Peter’s example of Christ-likeness and be showered in the peace that it affords us.