#self-death

The Problem

Anyway, I must confess the truth is that much more so than content, I am angry.  I harbor a lot of bitterness about my life, society, and quite frankly I don’t know what else.  I do know that when it comes right down to it, I’m angry because I believe I am not being treated the way I ought to be treated.  “How dare they,” I ask alone in my thoughts, “do this to me,” as if I am worthy of some special treatment.

Just today, in fact, I was angered in this way simply over lunch.  While on the prowl for some eats in the union, I started for the Taco Bell line, which was already wrapping around the corner.  I noticed a young man approaching it from the opposite direction a bit further off.  Seeing that I was about to add to this already overwhelming coagulation of students, he did not hesitate to speed up, turn around in front of me, and usurp my place in the line.  Enraged, I continued walking right by the Taco Bell and took out my frustration in devouring a hot dog, which I procured linelessly elsewhere. 

I know. This is a really stupid thing to lose my temper over.  But surprisingly, this former semi-professional screamer blows a gasket over a lot less.  Just ask anyone who has ever played videogames with me.  And, as always, it has everything to do with the ever-growing list of things I feel entitled to. 

The Solution

As with all my most prized vices, this generally goes unchecked until it encounters God.  I didn’t go looking for biblical counsel on this issue in particular, but it found me while I was reading through Luke 14 the other day. 

  Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” Luke 14:7-11

Don’t like being taken down a peg? Take the lowest peg.  That actually makes a lot of sense.  It certainly makes more sense than throat-punching kids over a one-minute delay in getting my crunch wrap supreme.

  If I “think of myself more highly than I ought,” I am bound to be frustrated by God and the world, both of whom will never cease shattering my delusions of self-grandeur (Romans 12:3).  Rather, my outlook should be to “value others above [myself]” (Philippians 2:3); this is to be like-minded with Christ.  For, it is not the honor and position I give myself that matters, but the honor and position bestowed upon me by The Host.  “[H]e humbled himself by becoming obedient to death …

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place” (Philippians 2:8-9).