Being Less Than in a Greater Than World

I cannot begin to convey to you my horror over what I just witnessed with my own two eyes. While waiting to be checked out at our local Hobby Lobby, I watched a middle aged woman ram her way past the six or seven people behind me in line to take the next spot at the newly available cashier. Though usually it is considered courteous to allow whoever has been waiting in line the longest to make their way to the unoccupied register, I didn't think much about this woman's somewhat rude insistence that she be the next customer to be served. I had been waiting that long, I could wait a few more minutes. Unfortunately, two of the women behind me weren't so persuaded that this impatient woman's actions were socially excusable. The offended customers shouted down the line that there were people waiting and the overly eager woman needed to resume her place in the line behind everyone else. The woman who had considered herself entitled to the front spot responded that had the other two women been more aggressive, this never would have happened. After all, "you snooze you lose." That's when all chaos broke loose. Insults were hurled up and down the line of bewildered customers for a solid five minutes before the manager walked up to try and restore order… by siding with the proclaimed "cutter." Way to make matters worse. By the time I made my way through the line, the three strangers had insulted each other's character, integrity, and the validity of their upbringings. As soon as I had my receipt in hand, I practically sprinted out of the store.

What on earth?! There was one solution to that entire mess that was left completely unconsidered. Had any one of the three women determined that she was going to allow another human being to for a moment be considered of more importance than herself, the screaming match never would have seen the light of day. Had you suggested that to any of the three, however, my educated guess is that they would have laughed in your face. Allow someone else to be first at the sake of my pride and the meeting of my own needs? That's absolutely unheard of in our society. We can't stomach the idea of being less than anyone. We deserve to be the greatest after all. Why? Well, we aren't really sure, but our sense of entitlement stands regardless. 

What if Jesus would have come to the earth insisting that he be allowed to be the first, the greatest, the most important? I can tell you this, we would all still be dying in our sins because he never would have made it to the cross. It would have cost too much. Too much pain. Too much pride. Too much service on his part. However, Jesus, though equal with God, did not consider himself in equality with God. Rather, he humbled himself in obedience to the point of death, even death on a cross. No one here is asking you to humble yourself to death. However, I am asking both you and myself if we could stand to consider ourselves a little more "less than" among people who insist on being "greater than." God instructs us in Philippians 2:3 to do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility to count others as more important than ourselves. That means that we don't sit around weighing the scales to determine whether or not we think someone is "worth it." To Jesus, they WERE worth it, and that's just about the only scale that matters.