Serve or to be served?

I have been working for a long time in this life of mine. I find that my job is always one thing and then there is a section of the job description that says something like… And anything else that needs to be done. I don’t like that part because I figure that is where I am going to get messed with by the boss. Well, I do think we need to work hard for our employers and we need to do the best we can do while working. Remember the Bible says to work as unto the Lord not unto man. So when I am working hard for an employer I am trying to remember that I am working for God not him.

I have had jobs in a variety of places, but this latest job has opened my eyes to what I see as a problem. Because of the way I was raised, I never noticed this before, but people that work for and around others are working people. OK, what does that mean? I guess I never really saw a “laborer”, or a race, or gender. When I saw a janitor at the school I saw a person working. When I saw someone cutting meat in the deli, I saw a person. When I saw a roofer, or trash collector, lawyer, doctor, or salesperson, I was seeing people. In the job that I have now, I see that people don’t always see people, but second class citizens. I think that is terrible. I don’t think we should look down on others because of their occupation, I don’t think we should look down on people because of the color of their skin, or their gender. I see discrimination like that all of the time now.

What have I learned? I am going to be careful to watch for this in my life. I don’t want to fall in that trap. I want to keep seeing people as PEOPLE. I will still appreciate the jobs that are being done around me so that my life is better, but I will be careful to not fall into the trap of believing that I am better than anyone.

When “Dirty Jobs” came out, I loved watching it because it made me realize there were some pretty brave people in the world that did some amazing jobs so that I didn’t have to do those things. The program made me realize how lucky I am to have people like that in the world. Lately I realize that the program may have made other people just that much more biased against people who do those jobs because they can be nasty. We need to take the stand that we are blessed to have people like that in the world.

Parents, be careful to raise up your kids to see how blessed they are and not how privileged they can be.