Pretty soon, we are off to our annual professional development days in Gimli. Looking ahead to this trip has given me some much-needed time to pause and reflect on the incredible journey I’m on. I get to work alongside a truly great, remarkably talented group of people every single day. The deepest reason why I love them so much is simple: they work incredibly hard for the sake of others, completely pouring themselves out to make a difference. Witnessing that kind of dedication is humbling. In fact, when I look at the big picture, I know deep down that I don’t deserve the honor to be a servant to others in this capacity. I certainly don’t deserve the privilege to attend this upcoming retreat with them. I can only praise God that He operates on grace, and that He doesn’t give us what we really deserve.

To keep myself grounded, I consciously choose to put myself lower than a janitor. I want to be clear: I am absolutely not saying that janitors are lowly people. However, we all know that our society doesn’t exactly glorify that type of labor, and it doesn’t carry a high social standing per se. By placing myself at the bottom—right at the very bottom—I find I can just be glad to serve without the baggage of pride. There was a time in my younger years when I would have sneered at that position, but I’ve matured a lot over the years (even though I still joke around way too much).

We all have to play the cards that are dealt to us in this life. Some people started out with a full house, inheriting every advantage, while some of us started with a completely crappy hand. But we have to remember that God is the ultimate dealer, and He can change our situation in the blink of an eye. Against all odds, I consider myself a wild success today. It’s not because I had advantages over others—in reality, I had many disadvantages. Growing up, the odds often felt stacked against me, yet here I stand.

But instead of complaining, I have tried my best to make the most of what God has given me. I doubled down over and over again, and God faithfully multiplied my hand. Given what I originally started out with, I think very few people have taken what they were given and made as much with it as I have. Yet, even that achievement is fully accredited to God, because He easily could have withheld that from me.

At this point in my life, I could care less about what other people think of me. Instead, I care deeply about what Jesus thinks about me, and the true quality of the man I am when no one else is watching. I want to have a genuinely kind heart, though if I am being completely honest with myself, I don’t think I fully have one yet. My ultimate goal is to learn to put others before myself, and to treat them the exact way Jesus treated people during His time on earth. This pursuit shapes my decisions and my responses in both big moments and small, everyday interactions.

You ultimately become what your repeated behavior is. If you lie too much, you eventually become a liar, and people will look at you funny and stop trusting you. If you kill, you become a murderer, and you will have blood on your hands. On the other hand, if you choose to love like Jesus did, if you actively forgive the people that hurt you, and if you consistently work with a true servant’s heart, you become more like Jesus.

Jason