At Your Service

"I'm not your serve!" my 3 year old yelled at his sister. I giggled to myself, as I watched him imitate his sister's usual response to him. And so, "I'm not your servant" was born in our house as the response to any sibling request for assistance.

Only now that cute 3 year old is 6 and I find myself frustrated by my children's selfishness toward each other. It's enough to cause an all out war of the wills. Then, it happened...one of my children, after being told to unload the dishwasher, turned to ME, the one who washes puke out of his sheets when he gets sick, and said the unthinkable...yes, he used the "I am not your servant" response on his MOTHER!!!!! It was time for a biblical lesson...

So, we read from Philippians 2:

"Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves...Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant.."

We bowed our heads in a bedtime prayer, and my son prayed, "Lord, thank you for coming to serve us. Amen." I smiled to myself and went over the verses again, pointing out the part he missed...the imitators of Christ part!

It was later that it occurred to me that sometimes I have this same selfish struggle within me. How many times do I say no to my kids just because I don't want to clean up the mess or because I would rather check email than play a game? Or worse yet, how many days do I slack on my time with God, then wonder why I have such an attitude problem with my husband or the lady at the bank, or those little selfish people in my house!

Lord, help me to be an example to my kids as I follow your example.