Another Life Lesson

Before church started this morning,as is my habit I silenced my cellphone. For some reason today though I decided to set it to vibrate as no one calls me then anyway. Right? Wrong. During the closing prayer I was startled by this rather annoying bzzzzz. I silenced it, only to have it buzz again and silenced it completely. After the close of the prayer and final song I noticed on the display that my brother had called a few more times during the singing. This annoyed me a tad since he would have known I was still in church at that time.
So, feeling slightly annoyed, I called him back while waiting for my car to warm up a bit. The conversation revealed that he was calling to ask for his handmixer back (that I'd borrowed) and to see if I would take him and his friend grocery shopping. Now this was a bit of a sore spot as I felt a bit like a built in taxi at times with his requests for lifts to places. Also, my plans for the afternoon did not include busy post-church crowds, or staying out any longer than possible in the freezing temperatures. He would just need to find someone else to take him shopping, I would rather stay warm under a blanket and read a book.
Well, my trip home took about 10-12 minutes and went right past his house. Along the way I was reflecting back over the sermon topic and its application and meaning. The main topic had been about prayer, its importance to our lives, and practical ways to make it an important part of our day. But just one statement from the sermon kept playing over in my mind. Paraphrased it was : "Ephesians is all about grace giving. We are supposed to be grace givers. And today when you go home to that meal you don't want to face, or the kids you don't want to watch, or whatever it may be, pray about it. We are to give grace back to those who only take, that we may give them just one glimpse of Christ in us."
As Christians we are supposed to reflect Christ in all that we do. And how do we best do that? By being servants, giving of ourselves, putting aside what we want for the good of someone else. There was perhaps nothing wrong with saying "No." to my brother's request. But it's not hard to see that it wasn't very Christ-like. Yes the Spirit was working on me, telling me I needed to make the choice to be as Christ.
So I called him and said I'd changed my mind and would pick them up. And you know what? It was fun and I was glad I'd listened to that gentle voice prodding me to do right. Do you want to know how many items a guy can fit in two shopping baskets because it would just be too easy to go get a cart? Well we didn't count but it was a lot, lol.
We loaded up our shopping, I dropped them off, and then headed back home with plenty of time to do with as I wished.
Why do I share this rather ordinary story? Because I'm attempting to demonstrate how easy it is not to be Christ-like even if in your heart of hearts that is what you want to be. Yet the Holy Spirit is faithful to gently call us to do right, He will point out our sin and challenge us to follow His way. When you do, you will discover it isn't quite as hard as it looks. Additionally there is the added bonus of knowing you did the right thing.

"Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.."