My family and I just finished a week long vacation in Walt Disney World, the "happiest place on earth". We took a Disney bus to and from the airport. On the day we left, the lady driving our bus was in the midst of her third day on the job. She was having some typical growing pains, but was pleasant and clearly doing her best. When we arrived at the airport, she got off the bus and said that we should remain in the bus until she unloaded our bags so that we did not have to stand in the hot and smelly bus parking lot but could stay in the air-conditioned bus. I imagine there was also a safety question - you couldn't have 50 people standing around waiting for their luggage, running the risk of being hit by any one of the numerous buses constantly pulling in and out. She went on to, by herself, pull people's bags out of the bus and put them out where we could get them. Inside the bus, after a couple of minutes, people began to get agitated that they were having to stay on the bus and wait. They wanted to go. One guy said, "This lady better get used to dealing with unruly travellers." We proceeded up to the front of the bus to try to figure out how to open the door. It hadn't even been 5 minutes yet! Amy and I tried to occasionally speak up on the bus driver's behalf, but most of the folks didn't want to hear it. They didn't want to wait.
Disney is renowned for its customer service and doing everything it can to make its guests feel like a prince or princess. However, I think yesterday I saw the dark side of that. When people have been treated like royalty, they start to feel like everything should be the way they want it the moment they want it. Here was a lady doing everything she could to take care of her passengers, and people were complaining that they were having to wait for a couple of minutes.
I wonder if this is what life is like for God. He has said that we are a royal priesthood, a holy nation. He has made us a little less than the angels, treated us like royalty. However, I wonder if we allow our royalty to make us lethargic, complacent, even spoiled. We complain because God doesn't do something exactly the way we want Him to do it or when we want Him to do it. All the while, God is there working away, thinking of our best interest and serving us, giving us what we need.
While I sat on the bus listening to people all around me complain about our bus driver, out my window I could see this woman, pulling yet another suitcase out of the bus. And I felt a little sad that no one else seemed to see her effort.
