Friday, April 25, 2003
Putting Aside the Petty Self
Well, for the first time in a while I was forced to take a good look at my attitude and to admit that it is definitely not in tune with God's ideal for me. Sometime during this week our short term mission trip got an email asking us if it'd be alright to move our scheduled meeting from 10:30am to 4:00pm, because we had to have another meeting at the church at 6:00pm anyway, and this would stop us from having to go twice. I emailed right away to say that I'm supposed to be tutoring for an hour, hour and a half starting from 3:00pm or 3:30pm, so 4:00pm wouldn't be good. Then today I got the email saying we would be meeting at 4:00pm tomorrow. Again I replied that I am already scheduled to tutor, so I would probably be late.
Then I got a call from a fellow team member and he asked me if it would be possible for me to reschedule my tutoring session. He said that he understood that it's sometimes difficult to juggle our schedules--we're all busy people--but that the mission trip should be our priority, so we ought to do our best to accomodate.
To be honest at first I was a bit irritated that this was being said, not so much at what was being said, but that I was being taken to task. In my mind, I was frustrated that our pastor had arbitrarily changed the meeting time without even addressing the fact that I had mentioned a conflict. It bugged me that she just set the meeting time without asking me if I would mind adjusting my schedule, or explaining why it absolutely had to be at 4:00pm.
It was probably my laziness showing, but I would rather have been less efficient by having one meeting at the church in the morning and then another at night than having to go through the hassle of rearranging my schedule. Basically I had already planned for the meeting to be in the morning, and was resistant to the idea of changing.
But that's a pretty selfish attitude. It really isn't that much work to reschedule my tutoring schedule (although it might be a bit difficult with only one day notice since they're hard to get a hold of by phone) and it does make sense to have back-to-back meetings rather than breaking up the day with two meetings at the same place at different times. And it's not as if my student has drawing classes this week which would prevent him from coming earlier.
So yeah, it was good that this came up so I could do an attitude check. After some moments of introspection I am forced to recognize that my heart isn't really in this trip at all. I'm going because I feel like I should, but I still don't really have that much of a desire to go, and I'm not even working all that hard to make myself have the proper attitude. It's very troubling.
For this is what the Lord has commanded us: " 'I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.' " Acts 13:47
Well, for the first time in a while I was forced to take a good look at my attitude and to admit that it is definitely not in tune with God's ideal for me. Sometime during this week our short term mission trip got an email asking us if it'd be alright to move our scheduled meeting from 10:30am to 4:00pm, because we had to have another meeting at the church at 6:00pm anyway, and this would stop us from having to go twice. I emailed right away to say that I'm supposed to be tutoring for an hour, hour and a half starting from 3:00pm or 3:30pm, so 4:00pm wouldn't be good. Then today I got the email saying we would be meeting at 4:00pm tomorrow. Again I replied that I am already scheduled to tutor, so I would probably be late.
Then I got a call from a fellow team member and he asked me if it would be possible for me to reschedule my tutoring session. He said that he understood that it's sometimes difficult to juggle our schedules--we're all busy people--but that the mission trip should be our priority, so we ought to do our best to accomodate.
To be honest at first I was a bit irritated that this was being said, not so much at what was being said, but that I was being taken to task. In my mind, I was frustrated that our pastor had arbitrarily changed the meeting time without even addressing the fact that I had mentioned a conflict. It bugged me that she just set the meeting time without asking me if I would mind adjusting my schedule, or explaining why it absolutely had to be at 4:00pm.
It was probably my laziness showing, but I would rather have been less efficient by having one meeting at the church in the morning and then another at night than having to go through the hassle of rearranging my schedule. Basically I had already planned for the meeting to be in the morning, and was resistant to the idea of changing.
But that's a pretty selfish attitude. It really isn't that much work to reschedule my tutoring schedule (although it might be a bit difficult with only one day notice since they're hard to get a hold of by phone) and it does make sense to have back-to-back meetings rather than breaking up the day with two meetings at the same place at different times. And it's not as if my student has drawing classes this week which would prevent him from coming earlier.
So yeah, it was good that this came up so I could do an attitude check. After some moments of introspection I am forced to recognize that my heart isn't really in this trip at all. I'm going because I feel like I should, but I still don't really have that much of a desire to go, and I'm not even working all that hard to make myself have the proper attitude. It's very troubling.
For this is what the Lord has commanded us: " 'I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.' " Acts 13:47
