We live in a society that likes to make its voice heard. Whether it is shouting at rallies, giving interviews or just lecturing an employee in our office, we like to be heard. I think all of us should pay more attention to what Jesus says about putting the needs of others first.

If I follow this verse in Philippians, everyone is more important than I am. Sobering and humbling thought! That guy who cut me off in heavy traffic. I pray for him, for his safety and that he has a good meeting that he must be rushing to frantically. The lady who snatches the last box of my kind of tea off the shelf? Pray for her because she must need it for a reason. We are to be humble and defer to others, not laying down like a doormat, but allowing others preferential treatment if that is what they want. We have the attitude sometimes that others have to do something to earn our respect and our deference to them. No, we have to step back and show them that they are special to God and loved, in the small ways that we can.

We are living in a world that everyone is loudly demanding his own way, but we are called to be different. We are called to step back, observe and sometimes to even quietly walk away. We are no longer children standing in the aisle of the store demanding that our mom buy us the latest toy or new junk food. We are supposed to be maturing Christians and since we bear the name of Christ, we need to act like it, especially when others are watching. (Which, by the way, is all the time) People notice if we act differently than they do; they hardly glance at us if we are doing the same kind of selfish and attention-seeking actions that they are doing. The lifeboat is there at the dock and there are six seats and seven people. Your only chance at surviving is to quickly push someone aside and jump into the lifeboat. What do you do? I hope that you defer to others, knowing that if God sent the lifeboat to begin with, He can save you a different way or He can take you to be with Him. Like I said, defer to others and wait for God to tell you what you are supposed to be doing.

In our very noisy world that is constantly calling us this way or that, we have to be attentively listening to hear the voice of the Lord telling us what to do. He will guide us into the right way to show humility and preference for others so that we don’t cause offense. He will also tell us what we should be doing instead of forcing our way to the front. It’s easy to follow the crowd and just do what they are doing. But to follow Jesus, we have to be quiet and listen for His voice, even in this loud world that we live in.