Doing your brother’s dishes

The principles of the office kitchen are well-known:

• Don’t eat other people’s food.
• Clean up after yourself.
• When you take the last cup of coffee, make another pot.

Michal Zacharzewski | stock.xchng

They are also widely violated. Someone working late will “borrow” a sandwich or soda to get through the evening. Someone late for a meeting will leave dirty dishes in the sink. And someone who thinks she’s the only one who could possibly be drinking coffee at this time of the afternoon will leave an empty pot for that fella who’s working late.

Any time one of these things happens, it spurs a round of grousing and, often, a terse e-mail from the human resources department about respecting the kitchen rules.

But a servant mindset allows us to take things to another level.

What if, upon finding our soda missing, we said a prayer for the one who was so desperate (or absent-minded) to have taken it?

What if, on finding dirty dishes in the sink, we were to wash and dry them so the owner finds them clean on his return?

What if, when two cups of coffee are left in a 12-cup pot, you put in enough grounds and water for 10 cups? (Or, if it’s really late in the afternoon, just 4 or 5 cups.)

Jesus was called to serve, and so are we. It's tempting to vent our anger when someone violates the kitchen rules. But preserving relationships with our co-workers is more important than venting anger, which does not bring about the righteous life God desires (James 1:20). A servantlike approach redirects our anger into service for others. And that, in the long run, is much more satisfying.