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PROGRAM D-7084
Have you ever been in a situation where someone was taking advantage of you to the point that you felt belittled and degraded? Is that what Jesus meant for us to do when he set forth the extra mile principles in Matthew 5? How many extra miles do we go?
I shared with you an experience of a woman who had allowed some younger women in her office to continually take advantage of her hard work. As a result, she had become bitter about it and eventually stopped communicating with these women. That, of course, wasn’t doing anyone any good, including her testimony for Christ.
There’s a principle of respect here that is important to understand. When we allow ourselves to be treated in truly abusive ways, we lose respect for ourselves and others lose respect for us as well. As Christians, we need to learn to respect who we are. Self-respect is important, because we are created us in God’s image, and that means we are worthy of respect.
In this situation, this woman needed to take a stand against this unfair situation. She was hesitant to do this because of fear; she didn’t know what would happen. So she had taken the path of least resistance, allowed herself to become a doormat, ended up bitter and angry, and lost respect for herself and the respect of others. That is obviously not what Jesus meant when he told us to go the extra mile.
Sometimes we have to confront. It may not be comfortable, but it may be necessary. She might begin by saying to her boss:
I’d like to bring a situation to your attention which has existed for a while. Frankly, I thought it would go away, but it hasn’t, and I believe it’s time to address it with you.
Then after describing the problem unemotionally, she might close with:
I just wanted to let you know that I’m going to do my share of the workload as I always do, but I don’t think it would be right for me to continue to carry their share as well. It’s not fair to me, and it really isn’t fair to them, either. They need to learn the discipline of doing what’s required of them.
Certainly we should be willing to go the extra mile, but we should also be careful that we don’t destroy our own self-respect by going too many extra miles.
