Imagine you are walking along a beach, enjoying the salt spray from the waves crashing lightly onto the shore as your bare feet leave wet imprints in the sand behind you. Now imagine you happen upon a mysterious looking vase of some kind half buried in the sand. As you bend to pick it up, you realize it’s actually an archaic oil lamp, dirty from the elements, but still hauntingly beautiful. Your first thought is, how did this thing get here? Your second thought is, I wonder how much this is worth; it’s awfully old! Your third thought is, if I rub it, maybe a genie will come out and grant me three wishes.
You chuckle to yourself at your foolishness, but even as you are chuckling, your hand, almost of its own accord, is absent-mindedly stroking the sides of the lamp. You are hardly even aware you are doing it, but you become very much aware when a large and jovial looking fellow suddenly comes pouring out of the lamp to hover in the air before you.
“Greetings,” he says, “I am the Genie of the Lamp, and since you have freed me from my prison, I am going to gift you three questions.”
You can scarcely believe your good fortune! You are so blown away by this turn of events, and so busy formulating three wishes in your mind, that you very nearly missed the wording of the Genie’s offer. Wait! Did he say three QUESTIONS?
“Indeed I did,” says the Genie, almost as if he was reading your mind. “Three questions I will give you, and if you ask and answer these three questions well, they will change your life in ways you could only barely dream of.”
Well, you shrug to yourself, it’s not three wishes. Maybe I got a defective Genie or something. But, still . . . three questions that will change my life? That should be worth something! So you ask the Genie to continue, and he presents you with the following three questions, and promises again that asking and answering these three questions well every day would change your life.
Who Am I?
The first question the Genie gives to you is deceptively simple. Who are you? Beneath the mask you habitually wear, the one you are likely wearing even as you read this, who are you, really? What are your core values, your non-negotiables? When I was in my early twenties, I was parked outside a department store when I saw an elderly woman struggle out of her car with an open purse in one hand and a cane in the other. As she closed the door and headed unsteadily into the store, I noticed that she had somehow dropped some money on the ground. Thinking I would be a hero, I hurried out of my car and picked up the money—a single $100 bill. Suddenly, my altruism and Good Samaritan mindset was in a struggle. Returning a dollar was one thing, but, man, I could sure do a lot with $100.
I’m ashamed to say how long I stood there wrestling with my conscience over what I should do with that money. In the end, with much inward groaning, I did return the money to the individual who dropped it. But the cause of my struggle was simple. I had not yet asked and answered the question of who I was. I had no core me established, so every circumstance, every temptation, had to be negotiated as its own separate thing. When I was deciding in the moment who I was, rather than deciding once for all moments, my decision-making was subject to far too many variables. What was my mood, what was the value of the temptation, what was my “need” or “want” level, etc.
Once I learned to ask and answer the question, Who am I, every day, with an emphatic affirmation of my commitment to the values of honesty, integrity, compassion, and service in love, the moment by moment decisions became much easier for me, and my life was changed dramatically.
Whose Am I?
The second life-changing question is one that gives context to the first question. That is, you can’t really know who you are, until you decide whose you are. When the prodigal son from Luke 15:11-32 had fully experienced the tragic consequences of his rash decision to taker his inheritance and use it up on wild living, he remembered where he came from and whose he was. “I will arise and go to my Father,” he says.
What’s significant here is that at the outset of his descent into this hellish life he was living, the young man had essentially disowned his father by asking for his inheritance early. To return home, he had to make a choice to once again place himself in the family and to acknowledge that he belonged to his Father. Once he made that decision, everything else fell into place. Of course, the only thing he had the power to do was go back and offer himself as a servant to his father—a different kind of belonging. It was his father who ultimately restored the father-son relationship.
That same opportunity awaits us. Every morning, take a moment to decide, actively and intentionally decide, that whatever happens, you will be Abba’s son or daughter that day. Abba Himself will take care of the rest. But, oh how that decision makes the answer to the first question so much more solid. Because I am my Father’s child, I live according to my Father’s values—they are who I am.
Whose Feet Will I Wash Today?
The last of the three life-changing questions represents the intersection between profession and real life. Whose feet will I wash today? Jesus, of course, modeled this mindset for us there in the upper room before his death on the cross. John 13 tells the incredible story of the Son of God kneeling before these men who would all run away and leave him in his most vulnerable time and washing their feet. This was a task normally performed by a servant, but since there was no servant present, Jesus became the servant and washed the dirty, road-worn, feet of his fickle followers.
Understand, though. This was no ceremonial act. This was real selflessness performing a real and degrading act of service for people who, honestly, didn’t deserve it. By asking whose feet we will wash today, we are placing ourselves inside the Spirit of Christ and fulfilling the command of Paul to the same mind that Christ had—a mind of selfless, self-sacrificing, service to others, no matter their station or relation to us.
Mike Carr was a supervisor with Southwest Airlines when he was called to a gate to help with a strange and uncomfortable situation. An elderly couple was traveling home to Albaqurkie, New Mexico, when the husband, who is suffering from Alzheimers, soiled himself. The wife was in tears and had no idea what to do since the man could clearly not fly with his clothes soiled. With no other options, and moved by the very real distress the couple was experiencing, Mike retrieved a change of clothes from the couple baggage and proceeded to take the elderly gentleman into the restroom. There, he cleaned the man up, changed his clothes, and made sure he was able to get onto his flight and get home. You can see the story here.
You and I may not be called upon to go to this extreme to “wash someone’s feet.” But, then again, we may. The certainty is, we will daily have the chance to humble ourselves and follow Christ’s example and serve. Deciding every morning that we will wash someone’s feet by serving them truly is life-changing in a way that cannot be described, only experienced.
So, let’s commit to asking ourselves these questions every day: Who am I? Whose am I? Whose feet will I wash today? And then let’s share how God has used our good answers to those questions to change our lives in ways we could have only dreamed of before.
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