My New Lesson in Humility

I don’t think it’s a secret that things like entitlement and pride are looked down upon, especially in Christian culture. When a person says, “I deserve this or that” we can quickly jump on them and say things like, “Your sin disqualifies what you ‘deserve.'” or “Only God decides what you deserve.” or “Who are you to say that you deserve this?” 

These statements have varying degrees of wisdom (and the tone in text probably sounds much more aggressive that these kind of statements should generally be spoken), and I think these concepts are agreed upon in higher Christian education. Personally, I feel like these are issues that I started working on a long time ago.

Years and years ago someone identified arrogance in my lifestyle and I despised it. I was offended, and I made sure that I would never come across as arrogant or entitled again. In all honesty, I took this sort of mentality far enough to the point where it has damaged my self image and I’m working on building that back up.

So imagine my surprise when I realized that, after all of my sanctification after finishing a discipleship program, I was feeling entitlement.

To give you context, one of our prerequisites for CGA is to have a part-time job to pour into the community of Gainesville in addition to supplementing the money we have to fundraise. Our first three weeks of CGA have been laced with job interviews, applications, disappointment, and celebration because of this.

I had a lot of frustration. Our applications have been to part time jobs, and for me that meant restaurants and retail stores. I started with the ones that I thought would be more interesting, such as athletic stores or coffee shops. I thought to myself, I have a college degree, 2 years of work experience with a cellphone sales company (and multiple customers service awards, might I add), and experience from more than 4 unique restaurants. I assumed that I could get any of these jobs easily. I applied for cashier positions. To be blunt, high-schoolers get these! The entry level requirements for a position like that are low.

So imagine my frustration when I was notified that I did not receive my first cashier job…

and then my second…

third…

I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard you correctly. I DIDN’T get this job either?

So I applied to a backroom unpacking job. My responsibility would be to move boxes.

I didn’t get it.

The ugly entitlement came out. I deserve these jobs. I’m overqualified. Do they seriously think I would be a bad fit for this job? Get real.

What an ugly realization. And what an ugly lack of trust on my behalf. Who am I to say that someone else didn’t need those particular jobs more than I did? Who am I to understand that God orchestrated them not hiring me so that I could later get a job that fit with his plan? Who am I to say that I deserved this?

I do have a job now (praise Him) at Books-a-Million, which I am thankful for. I was very impressed with the people that conducted my interview, and I am grateful that it’s a job that will be low-stress, close to my house, full of coffee (and will teach me basic coffee shop management on top of other things), and complete with a 30% discount on books.

God has a lot in store for me this year, but I thought the lessons would be grandiose. Well. Not yet. Looks like I’m starting back at square one with issues that I thought I had overcome. How creative and cool is God, and how grateful I am that he desires to work with me on even the smallest of issues.

Thank you for your time. God is good.