Bother us!

 A man with an unclean spirit shrieked: "What do you want of us, Jesus of Nazareth?" 

Mark 1:24

"What do you want of us?? Why are you bothering us?? Let us alone!! What business do you have with us??" These are all translations of Mark 1:24. In other words, "This is my life, get your hands off my life, don't interfere!!"

The unclean spirit KNEW whom he was talking to- Jesus, the Holy One of God. We all know God wants to "interfere" in our life. He wants to help us, redeem us, guide us. But sometimes, we want to be left alone to do what we want. We don't want to change. We don't want to see what needs to be changed IN us!! We are too proud to admit we need to change.

Romans 12:3 reads "Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought.." I have to confess I deal with this in myself all the time. When I get impatient or annoyed about something or someone, is it not that I am thinking I am too important to deal with this, to deal with incompetence or inefficiency, slow acting, or slow speech, falling in line, or whatever. We have to watch how we treat people, family, office mates, strangers. This is how we show we are learning and growing to be disciples. "By this shall all men know you are My disciples- that you love one another." (John 13:35) Corinthians 13 says that when we love, we are patient, kind, humble, we don't take into account a wrong suffered, we bear all things, we endure!

In the movie My Fair Lady, which was about a flower girl Eliza Doolittle, Eliza tells Mrs. Higgins, “The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she's treated. I shall always be a flower girl to Professor Higgins, because he always treats me as a flower girl, and always will, but I know I can be a lady to Col. Pickering because he always treats me as a lady, and always will." Professor Higgins treated her as if she was his property picked "out of the squashed cabbage leaves of Covent Garden”. 

How do we treat others? How do we talk to our helpers, the street sweeper, the harassed cashier? Do we look down on them, or do we treat them with the dignity they deserve as our brothers and sisters in God’s family? 

Yes Lord, bother us! Show us where we need to change!