Love
Before heading to work each morning, I like to spend twenty minutes on the tenth-floor balcony doing my devotional time and singing hymns. The place is quiet, the air is fresh, and there’s no cigarette smoke. After singing two hymns, the cleaning lady came by to mop the floor. As she bent over with her mop, moving it back and forth, I felt an unintentional sense of superiority as she came near. It was as if I was telling myself, “We’re not from the same class.” I felt ashamed when I realized this.
I wondered, what if we switched places? How would I feel?
I’d definitely feel inferior, very inferior, just like I do now when I face people with power and money.
When dealing with people who have less money or “status” than I do, I don’t respect them. Like when yelling for a waiter at a restaurant, or ignoring the cleaning lady. At those moments, I see them as slaves because my subconscious whispers, “I pay, so I get to order you around.”
Yet, when I face those with more money and higher status, I know I mean nothing to them, and so I feel deeply inferior. In the presence of power, I live like a slave.
It’s tragic.
What right do I have to treat them as slaves?
What right do I have to look down on myself?
Before God, we’re all the same.
The more I think about it, the more ashamed I feel, even as my mouth continues to sing hymns.
It’s a disgrace to God’s love.
At one point, I almost wrote, “They’re pitiful, I should care about them…” But they’re not pitiful. They work earnestly and get paid honestly. It’s just that life isn’t easy for them.
A few times on the balcony, a cleaning lady started chatting with me, making small talk. I felt embarrassed then, worried about what others might think about me talking to “a cleaning lady.”
Truly shameful.
Among friends, I might pass as someone decent, and sometimes I even have a good opinion of myself. But experience after experience shows me how petty and shallow I am. Realizing this, I don’t feel inferior; in God’s presence, who am I really?
We need God’s love. Everyone does.