Here's an antidote in the musings of a sailor in Herman Melville's great classic, MOBY DICK:
"What of it if some old hunk of a sea-captain orders me to get a broom and sweep down the decks? What does that indignity amount to, weigh, I mean, in the scales of the New Testament? Do you think the archangel Gabriel thinks anything the less of me because I promptly and respectfully obey that old hunk in that particular instance? Who ain't a slave? Tell me that. Well, then, however the old sea-captains may order me about, I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is one way or other served in much the same way--either in a physical or metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the universal thump is passed round, and all hands should rub each other's shoulder-blades, and be content."
Most of us are not exactly under the orders of "some old hunk of a sea-captain," but we are meant to be willing and cheerful servants of anybody who happens to need us. Have I a true servant-heart? I should have. I will not be anything like my Lord Jesus if I haven't, for He came not to be served but to serve. He set for us a radiant example of how practically He meant it. He washed feet. Knowing His own origin and destiny, He did it with grace and He did it with love.
And what is our origin? Our destiny? We, too, "come from God and are going back to God." Is there any job, then, that is really "beneath us?" Any "thump" that we really mind?
"You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love" (Galatians 5:13, NIV).
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Is God 'thumping' me and showing me how to be a servant??? Is this part of the lesson I am supposed to learn in my present circumstances?
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