“Can you take my kids to school for me,” my friend asks, “I woke up late.” I had invited my friend and her kids to spend the weekend at my house because I enjoyed hanging out with her. It was now Monday morning and she needed a favor . . . but she seemed to expect me to solve her problem. I had gotten up early because I wanted to spend some time with the Lord before I went to work, and if I helped her out I would not have time for that or a shower. I did not want to do it, but I wondered if I was being selfish. Doesn’t the Bible say we are to put others first? When someone asks, aren’t we supposed to go the extra mile, to give others the shirt off our back? Doesn’t Scripture admonish us to pick up our cross and die daily? So, I reluctantly agreed to bring her kids to school . . . in attempt to “do the right thing.” Normally doing the right thing felt good – but doing this favor made me feel lousy inside . . . 

"Time to clean up!" I told Connor to pick up his toys but he just sat on the floor whining. He begged me to help because it was “too hard,” a task that would literally take 30 seconds. Connor said there were too many toys to clean up. My ingenious response was that if he had too many toys to clean up then maybe he should give some away. (Of course my intent was to motivate him to clean up, not give the toys away). Instead he replied, “Okay Mommy, I want to give my toys to children who don’t have any.” Uh oh, I wasn’t prepared for that response . . . but I knew I couldn't back down from my "threat." I paused for a moment, not knowing what to say.  Immediately I heard in my spirit . . .

I had only been working as a physician assistant for a year or two. There were several medical assistants at the practice, but for some reason, one of them was consistently rude to me. When I asked her to do anything for my patients (like draw blood or run a strept screen), she would roll her eyes or huff and then take her own sweet time to get it done. She did not treat the other employees like this, so clearly her issue was with me, but I had no idea why she disliked me. Since this girl was only a couple of years younger than me, I thought that if I reached out in friendship, maybe she would soften towards me . . . so I invited her over to my house to hang out with me and my roommate. The look on her face clearly communicated she was not . . .