Luke 17:7-10

7 And which of you, having a servant plowing or tending sheep, will say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and sit down to eat’? 8 But will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare something for my supper, and gird yourself and serve me till I have eaten and drunk, and afterward you will eat and drink’? 9 Does he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I think not.[c] 10 So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.’”

How much happier we would be if we could view ourselves and our work the way that Jesus tells us to in this passage. Unfortunately, we probably all know the feeling of resentment that results when we allow ourselves to have the opposite attitude. If we have been blessed with exceptional skills in certain areas, and we are called upon to actually use those skills, the temptation is to compare ourselves to others and grumble about how we are carrying too much of the load. To combat that way of thinking, we should assume that we have been given those abilities for this very situation, for God to use us, and that next time we might just as easily be on the other end as the recipient of someone else's calling.

If a player on a sports team has been given a star role, the team is dependant upon them and that person must live up to their role if the team is to win. It would be ridiculous for the running back on a football team to compare his touchdowns to that of his offensive linemen and complain about how it's always up to him to carry the ball. But when we allow ourselves to become self-centered, this kind of backwards thinking can happen almost automatically. We can fall into the trap of commending ourselves for doing routine things that if we weren't doing, we would be letting others down. We think that just because we are uniquely positioned to do a task that nobody else can do at that time, we deserve something in return, or that we have a right to look down on others who aren't doing our particular task. This attitude can also cause us to ignore the contributions of others or assume that we would do better than them if we were given their opportunity.

This passage encourages us to "keep it real" concerning our contribution in whatever group we are part of . Even if we are an essential part of the group and are providing something no one else can, if we are to remain positive and productive, we must always see our contribution as our duty and not as something someone else owes us for.