Daily Devotion:

Title: My Job's Harder

Date: January 28, 2013

Clergy are kidded about working one morning a week for an hour. Police officers hear about donuts and coffee. Teachers are kidded about summers off. Highway workers are kidded for leaning on shovels. Most workers have heard just how dandy and easy their jobs are. If two fellows are working on a factory line, doing exactly the same job at exactly the same rate, one of the guys will believe the other guy is slacking off. We often misjudge.

Coach Chuck Mills of Wake Forest University (1973-1977)* summed up our misjudging of others this way — One who misjudges is like the fan who sits forty rows up in the stands and wonders why a 17-year-old kid can't hit another 17-year-old kid with a ball from forty yards away. Then the fan will go out to the parking lot and not be able to find his car. 

It turns out that humans might be hardwired to assume other people have jobs that are easier than their own jobs. A published study says that our brains may inevitably, and naturally, work to make such hasty judgments. Spiritually speaking, the one who firmly believes she's doing all the spiritual heavy lifting while the other seekers are slacking off, probably has a distorted perception of self, other and God. 

Let's Pray: Dear God, please forbid that we believe less of others and more of our own spiritual prowess. Teach us the humility of true wisdom. Give us eyes to see clearly the value of others. Amen. 

Here’s a Thought from Proverbs: Do you see persons wise in their own eyes? There is more hope for fools than for them. 

Sources: 

*Chuck Mills: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Mills
Mirsky, Steve, “Take This Job and Do It,” American Scientific, June 2004, p. 113. 

Proverbs: 26:12