She had a bad day...

You ever have one of those days where everything seems to go wrong? I remember one day in college my roommate, Amy, came back to the dorm and was super upset about how bad her day had been. She had overslept, so she didn’t have time to properly do her hair. During her Spanish test there was this high pitch noise and no one could figure out where it was coming from until the professor told Amy it was coming from her bag. The batteries were dying on some electronic so it was alerting her to replace them. She burnt her tongue on Easy Mac as she was running out the door to work. Some kids at the daycare puked on her. After work she got in her car, and it smelled of old Easy Mac she left in there at lunchtime. The list could go on.

You’ve had those days, I’ve had those days. I was having a morning like that the other Sunday. It just seemed like none of my preparations were coming together and I was getting flustered (flustered is putting it nicely). As I hurried through the narthex, I realized I had just walked past Caleb and hadn’t even acknowledged him because I was so focused on my own stuff.

[Philippians 2:1-4 Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.]

As I was teaching Sunday School that morning, one of the things we discussed was how compassion means “to suffer with” and when we are so focused on all of our own sufferings, we have no time to be compassionate towards others.

Paul talks about this with different words, but the same message. If we are in Christ, we should not be looking at just our own interests but the interests of others as well.

Don’t get tunnel vision and be so focused on all the things going on in your life that you have no time to be there for the people around you.

1. What’s the worst day you’ve ever had?

2. Let each of you look not only to _______________ interests, but also to the interests of _______________.

3. Who is someone in your life that could benefit from you looking out for their interests?

4. Take a minute and journal your thoughts about this passage:

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These are devotionals written for the teens. A handful of us are taking turns writing, so it may seem like sporadic passages. It all flows nicely for the teens in their devo books though.