Monday, 29 October 2007 01:00 | and posted in Spiritual Disciplines
"Do I have to?" (our Glasgow readers, may recognise this phrase more readily as, "D'a hufti?") Did you know that the average child in Scotland uses that phrase (in a whiney voice) on average 3,680 times before they are 16 years old? Actually I just made that up, but it can't be far away from the truth. Just listen in to my normal school morning conversations with my kids. Can you get your lunch box out of your bag please? Do I have to? Can you switch that back to BBC news? Do I have to? Wait for your sister - she's getting her shoes on. Do I have to?
I think there are two things we learn about ourselves from these well worn words. Firstly, we naturally want to be no.1 and secondly, we need a good reason to not want to be no.1.
Paul wrote to some Christians in Philippi who needed a bit of help in the matter of stepping back from thinking about themselves first all the time. He told them that they should, in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. (Philippians 2:3-4).
Already, I can here myself saying, Aw, do I have to? Paul isn't stupid - he knows what people are like. He has to spell it out. It's not easy or natural for most of us to put others first and yet Paul knows if we are going to create true community we need to train ourselves to serve others... especially (insert here a person's name you think you are better than).
Thinking of yourself as number 1 is what we call pride. Pride has this nasty habit of destroying our capacity to love and causing us to judge others rather than serve them. God calls us to serve others in humility because as we do so our pride lessens, we say do I have to more infrequently and our ability to share God's love and live in close community grows.
Just take a minute to imagine the affect to your school if everyone was to start thinking of others first! Serving others is a radical demonstration of God's love that has the potential to transform our communities, even our school environments. It's not easy, but it's the Jesus way and I don't know about you, but I want to be more like him.