Fernandez Blog

A couple of weeks ago I was leaving a local establishment here in Middletown, Ohio.  As I was leaving, and employee was complaining.  Surprised?  No, I was not surprised either.  The statement she made is what caused me to think.  She said, “They don’t pay me enough to do this job.”

First, let me make a few concessions:

1. I have no idea what this employee makes.
2. Her life may currently be upside down, and I am totally ignorant of this.  This I am not sure of either.
3. There could have been a series of events that caused her to vent openly before a customer.

Regardless, here is the question that came to my mind: “What do you deserve to be paid?”  As I continued to think about this event, I couldn’t help but consider how highly we esteem ourselves.  Did you know that the Bible never tells us to love ourselves; but that every time the Word of God mentions love of self, the Bible ASSUMES this to be true?  Consider Matthew 22:30 which says, “And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,” or Ephesians 5:29 which says, “For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:…,” or verse thirty-three of the same passage, “Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so my love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.”

As we approach the time of year where we commemorate the selfless, sacrificial giving of God, could we all stop for just a moment and consider applying a little dose of humility?  Philippians 2:6–8 says of Jesus Christ, “Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God [not something to be grasped at or attained because Jesus was already God]: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men [the incarnation or birth of Jesus Christ]: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”

The statement the employee made is not something we only hear, but many of us think this way.  What we deserve is truly far worse than what we have received.