Twenty Minutes!

I’ve been in line at the post office for twenty minutes.

The same woman has been at one of the two window as long as I have been here….

What’s taking her so long?

I am close enough now to hear her conversation…

“But I bought a stamp,” she says.

She gives the postal worker a receipt.

“I bought a stamp three weeks ago and I put it on a letter, and I gave the letter to a man who put it in a box behind the counter.  But my letter never got to where it was supposed to go.  I want to know where it is.”

“You didn’t buy any sort of tracking, so there’s no way I can find your letter,” replies the postal worker.

“I bought a stamp. Let me come back there and look for my letter.”

She bought a stamp…

Stamps bestow certain rights…

She wants her rights.

Right now I am not thinking about her rights.  I am thinking about my right to quick customer service…

Then a Bible passage comes to mind… a passage about Jesus…

…who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. . Philippians 2:6-7

I am upset about giving up my right to quick customer service…But Jesus, who was God, “emptied himself”….giving  up the very right to His life…

“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” Luke 22:42

I say I follow Jesus,,,

Jesus who…

Came to earth as a baby and told us to be more like children…

Washed feet and told us to do likewise,..

Died on a cross and told us to take up our own and follow Him…

I see the example of the life He lived,..

… the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve…” Mark 10:45

And yet, I cling to what I think is my right to use my own life for my own purposes…

And in clinging to my right to use my life as I want, I miss His clear direction for its real purpose…

Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.  John 15:13