A sense of entitlement

Any of you in public service jobs know that people suck! Man, they are rude, ungrateful, stingy, self seeking and no matter how hard you try to help them they don't seem give a damn!!! They go way beyond ungrateful to down right entitled. I would come home from work just dreading going in the next day because of the scumbag personalities I was going to be stuck with for 12 hours next shift.

I have always wanted a job in which I help the poor and suffering but I wasn't ready to deal with their attitudes. After awhile it's hard to say to yourself, "It's ok, he/she didn't have all of the nice blessings that you grew up with so they don't know any better." No, I mean that may be partially true, but they know exactly what they are doing and would do it again if given the chance. Dealing with these personalities was leaving me empty, bitter and void of the hope I know my faith in Christ was supposed to be supplying to me! No matter how much I prayed, I never felt full enough of God's love to leave work feeling like I wasn't dangling at the end of my own rope and feeling my own sense of entitlement to have some rest!

Obviously, this is not a healthy picture. I was really struggling with it, even questioning my career at times. But those of you who know God, know that He sometimes lets you get to the end of your unraveling rope just so you understand that you can't do it without Him.

And here we turn to old Oswald Chambers,"But the chief motivation behind Paul's service was not love for others, but love for his Lord. If our devotion is to the cause of humanity, we will be quickly defeated and broken hearted, snce we will often be confronted with a great deal of ingratitude from other people. But if we are motivated by our love for God, no amount of ingratitude will be albe to hinder us from serving one another." When I read that, something clicked in my mind. Love for the Lord was not my cheif motivation. All this time, I have been expecting thanks and gratitude. Why else would it make me upset to see people who were ungrateful?

I am learning to work because I love the Lord, not just because I want to love people. Because the truth is, without love for God in the forefront, I don't even like people. Every time my worst patient called me into his/her room this week, I was thinking, I want to go because I love God.
After adopting this thinking, the change in my attitude was immediate. Somehow this slight difference meant the world. Working and serving God instead of "humanity" made the ungrateful nature of some tolerable and pityable. I went home energized and happy. I can't explain why this seemingly slight difference made such an impact on me. It still feels like a mystery.

I do know now that love for God is alltogether different than love for people. It encompasses our entire life's journey with God and who can put that into words? How does love for God motivate and stretch us beyond our human capacity? I don't know if I could even stand an explanation as it seems so personal for each of us.

I must also keep in mind that no amount of service to others can ever repay my debt to Christ. And what's even better, He doesn't ask me to repay it. He gives it freely and without any condition other than my belief. Christ served humanity without any want for repayment. As my personal life in service has shown me, that kind of love is truly of another world.

So let love for God be your motivation, that your cup may be ever full so that you might continually be poured out in service to a broken world.

Ripping the Band Aid off

For the first time in a long time, I have a prayer life. I always pray when I'm walking and getting ready and that sort of thing but now I'm actually sitting down to just pray. I used to do this all the time....for hours and hours and hours. It got a bit unhealthy to say the least. I was trapped in feeling like I HAD to pray or something bad was going to happen to me because I didn't spend my time in prayer that day.  I think that's why I've avoided it for so long. I was afraid of those feelings, which are obviously a perversion of my relationship with God. And, you know, they did try to creep in on me shortly after I started, when I didn't allot time for prayer on a particular day. But, over the past four years, God has changed me so much that when I started to have those thoughts they were like a foreign alien to me and I recognized them right away! Well guess what people! I didn't pray this morning and God still loves me! I haven't prayed for the last few years in the traditional sense and He's still been teaching me!  He's been walking with me and revealing things to me and He's still helping me make decisions! He never left me or made me feel like I was a disappointment. After not praying for so long and then entering into the prayer mindset again as, I feel like a different person than I was the first time around. I feel more confident in God's love for me and it's unfailing nature. I don't care anymore what people think about my spirituality. I know I am His and He is mine, no matter what.  So as I sat down to pray this time, things were different.

This time, it has been less about feeling like I have to and more about feeling like I WANT to. God has already proven to me over and over again that if I don't pray, He wont leave me. I'm not impressing Him by spending hours on my knees either. This time it's really about wanting more of God, needing more of Him. I think the most glaring thing that has changed in me since I began praying is that God is on a roll with showing me some major imperfections. Next to His holiness, I really look worse than a mud puddle.  By spending time with Him I am beginning to see myself more clearly.  In my line of work, I see so many lives around me that have somehow self destructed and I know that, left alone, I am headed for the same fate. I'm no better than anyone and thinking "that will never happen to me" is foolish. Our human nature just loves to push us into making terrible decisions. We are pushed into sin by our own selfish desires. Sometimes those desires are so overwhelming that it feels like they cannot be overcome. And maybe they can't. Maybe what we really need is for those desires to be completely changed.

I want God to change me: to change those desires in me that will lead me down the wide path of destruction.  In my times of prayer, I am coming to see that one of God's greatest gifts is the truth. He's showing me the brutal, unvarnished truth about myself. Being told whats up isn't always the most pleasant experience, but I know it's a wonderful gift, a second chance to swerve back on course. So maybe the hardest part of prayer is mustering up the courage to listen to what God has to say about you.... Rip the band aid off, and go for it. It's the second chance of a lifetime.