Of Importance

If I have a chief struggle, a singular Achilles heel, it is my self-reliance. My outright inability to ask for help. My pride to figure it all out. We all know how things shook out for Achilles. His demise derived from a small wound to his rugged warrior foot.

Lately, my pride keeps swelling. I work at a fine place where I have status. As with any university, the organization is like a feudal system. There are the lords and ladies that claim and traipse all over the land, and then there are the servants, the workers of the fief. They can only aspire to hold rank.

It is easy to get caught up in the titles and territories and to forget that the only worthy leadership is servant leadership.

Tonight, someone looked right through me, paused, and then introduced the man next to me. Not acknowledging my title. Not acknowledging even that I had a name.

And why is my title valuable? Why do I care that others might know my name? So I can self-promote? So I can further depend on myself?

I serve the One whose sandal I am not even worthy to buckle. The Lord is every reason why we are here, why I am breathing this air to teach what I teach. He reigned as King in the most perfect place. He could have had the most excellent office with the pearliest nameplate and scintillating title. And He gave up office and rank to assume the lowest position, to rub shoulders with lepers, to wash the mud-caked feet of liars, to mend the hearts of the broken.

Aren't I so important to be so insulted? Insult is just entitlement masquerading as importance. Every life is important because it is God-breathed, but our status is the invention of our own imaginations. The Bible does not say blessed are those whose degrees hang large upon the wall. Or blessed are they who don't have a cow when someone wrongly claims their employee of the month parking spot.

On the contrary, the first shall be last, the poor shall inherit the earth, and those who are insulted for HIS sake will enjoy a sweet reward in Heaven. Probably in the VIP celestial suite. I hear it's a trillion star establishment.