After You

            My aunt had many sayings that to me were old-fashioned, yet they packed a lot of meaning into a few words. If I was thoughtful and not tuned into her words, she’d say I was in a “brown study.” If I said I liked something she was wearing, she’d say, “You must borrow it sometime.”

            Because her sayings were unfamiliar to me, they made me stop and think. What was a brown study? You mean she’d let me borrow something she had so I could enjoy it for a while, too? What an unusual, generous idea!

            Probably the saying that I’ve come to adopt most is: “After you I’ll be first.” I particularly like this one. Every time I think of it or say it, I roll it around in my mind. It’s so anti-human, so anti-twenty-first century. In a me-first-and-who-cares-about-you era, it’s positively antiquated! How often do you find anyone who gives you preferential treatment? How often does someone let you do something before her? Not very often, I’d guess. In fact, when someone lets us in in traffic, gives us wonderful customer service, or allows us to have something we knew he would have liked, we’re astonished at the kindness. An after-you-I’ll-be-first mentality is rare.

            One day I was caught on both ends of the spectrum. I actually opened a door and said, “After you I’ll be first” to someone entering a building. Later that afternoon, on another blistering ride home in the heat, my fuse was short, and I was very ungenerous with a driver who needed to get into my lane. The contrast between the two events disturbed me.

            It’s easy to be generous when conditions are good but harder when tensions are high. My mother has a saying: “You find out how nice people really are when they don’t get their way!” I’m not a nice person; I’m a redeemed person. What my aunt’s saying does is remind me of this scripture: “Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love, in honor preferring one another. (Romans 12:10, KJV) In other words, I’m to have a you-first attitude—to not want to have to be first, to be selfless. In the best words—to have the mind of Christ. Aha! Christ laid aside his desires to please his father.

This command is especially for Christians. We are to extend preference to other Christians, which is all the more challenging as we bump up against each other in the Body of Christ. Implementation takes the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives! Still, that’s what people will notice about us—that even when we get to know each other, we maintain a you-first attitude. That will be amazing to a world full of me-firsts.

            It’s going to take me a lifetime to learn how to do this well. I think I’ll have to go into my brown study about it! Perhaps you’d also like to go into a deep thoughtfulness about it, too.  And when you come out, perhaps you’ll decide be first after someone else. I hope so!