Of Christ's Humility & Ours

This was taken from my devotions this morning and is based of Philippians 2:4-11,

One of the places I worked at before coming here to the V.A. was a home for the mentally handicapped in St. Paul called Our House. During my time there I wrote the following journal entry:
In my ministry to the handicapped through my work at Our House, I am doing an incarnational work. You see, when Christ came down to be with us He retained all of His divine qualities, but He also knew that if He tapped into His full potential even once, His whole mission on earth would be canceled. He could have called down legions of angels in the Garden of Gethsemane , yet He knew He needed to go to the Cross (Matt. 26:53-54). There were many times throughout His time on earth when using His divine powers seemingly would have been to His advantage. Yet He resisted this temptation because He had a higher purpose in mind: The fulfillment of His mission, that of saving His People and fulfilling the scriptures. In the same way, I too have a mission in my work with the handicapped that restricts some of my capabilities. For example, part of my work there is to help the residents go through certain programs designed to help them become more independent. Now, it is fully within my power to do these tasks for them or even physically lead them through each time, and believe me there have been many times I have been tempted to do this. However, I know that if I do, my whole purpose of promoting that resident’s independence would be thwarted. If anything, I would be increasing their dependence on me as a care attendant, and while that may feed my ego and make me feel all good inside, it does little to forward the action on their independence.
This same concept also works here. As a chaplain, I am explicitly doing incarnational work. Yet I’m not the only one. The doctors and nurses here are doing it as well. So are the Food Service people, the cleaning people, and all the rest of the employees. We can all choose to be Christ to each other. Let us do so graciously.