If it pleases you, today I am serving up napkin #2 of Humility Week.

A lot of people don’t mind serving, but they hate the idea of being a servant.  It harkens back to days of slavery, indentured servitude and being in an inferior position where you are taken advantage of.

But the funny thing about really truly being a servant to another is that if you are doing it right you aren’t thinking about yourself. You aren’t thinking it’s unfair to you. You aren’t thinking someone is acting superior to you. You aren’t thinking about you at all.  You are thinking about how to serve the other person.  If they are a bit rude, so be it. If they are a bit thoughtless, so be it. They aren’t there to stroke your ego. They are there because they need, want or are paying for you to serve them in some way.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying a person in a serving role should be abused. I am just saying that as a servant you will come across all sorts of behaviors and your primary response is not to judge whether you like that particular behavior or not. Your response is to do the best you can in serving that person.  Obviously we have our limits and people who abuse should be stopped. But that is a separate issue from going into a serving situation with the right mindset and the right heart.

The humility of serving does not equal humiliation.

Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman,  a waiter on and off for 28 years, 1971 – 1999.

Quote by Anonymous