Over the last three months, I have been throwing around the idea of what being a servant is. How do I better serve others in my life? Now, why on earth would I want to be a servant to others? To willingly put myself below someone else and subject myself to whatever they want from me? To the world, this is crazy. But the bible and Christ himself calls us to be servants. To love one another the way God loves us. To put down our pride and entitlement attitudes and carry the cross. Unless you are a Christian, being a servant is mindboggling. But I find that even in the Christian world, we don’t really want to or see the need to serve others either.
I hadn’t thought much about being a servant until last December when I was listening to all of Mark Driscoll’s “This Present Princess” sermons. Mark Driscoll is the pastor of a 5,000 person church in
http://marshill.com/media/the-peasant-princess
Anyways… the reason I brought Mark Driscoll up is because in one of those “Present Princess” sermons, he talks about how marriage is surrounded by and only successful when both people are being servants to one another. To serve the other out of love. To put their spouses needs and wants before your own. Now, I’m single and listening to marriage sermons… I think I need a life. Haha. But while I was listening, toward the end, Mark asks the audience who was single and if they were wondering how this message applies to them. I was like “Yay! Finally something for me.” Mark then explained that we, the single people, are the worst of all when it comes to being selfish. My mouth dropped open and I was completely insulted. I’m single! It’s a littler hard to go “be a servant” to my spouse when they don’t even exist yet Mark! Thank you every much! But then Mark explained how single people do whatever they want, whenever they want to. They eat what they want to eat when they want to eat it. They make their own plans around their own schedule. And their goal is to better their own lives, to take care of themselves. This is not totally a bad thing, we have to take care of ourselves but it is a bad thing when we only focus on ourselves. Mark asked “Who is around you? And how can you be a better servant to them?” Practice makes perfect right?
So after listening to that sermon, I was deeply disturbed. Was I a selfish person? When it comes down to it, do I only care about myself? Who in my life did I know that needed encouragement, a friend, a helper but I was totally ignoring? I prayed about it and asked God to reveal to me where I was selfish. Over the next few days, I was blow away at how many selfish actions I was committing. I mean, I wasn’t being ungrateful or unthankful, but I was still selfish. I’d get annoyed at work when stupid customers would ask me stupid questions. I’d get easily frustrated when I’d come home from work at 9pm and find no left-over food from dinner for me. I literally realized how bad my “bad attitude” was.
I never thought I was selfish. But the truth is that we are ALL selfish. It is natural for us to be selfish and only want to better ourselves. That is our sinful nature. But Christ tells us to be different. To be selfless and to serve others. So that is what I started praying to do.
Now, I’m not perfect. But once I realized this sin in my heart and embraced the change God had for me, I have been a much happier person. You can’t ignore sin once I’ve seen it in your life. If you do, if you live with your sin, you are going down a road of destruction. God says that he won’t be where sin is. So don’t pick your sin over God. Let Him change your heart and life. With the small and the big. He only does it to help us, to make us better and to give us a better life. I can testify to this in many many areas in my life. I know better than to ignore Gods discipline. Hopefully you do also.
With Gods help, I have tried to be a better servant. Complain less, do more. Something as simple as smiling at every customer that comes up to my cashier counter made the biggest difference in my life. I found that serving others made me a happier person and it helped me to look forward to everyday. Being a servant has made me all the more intentional with my relationships and open to helping anyone before they have to ask. Having a servant heart is something you do have to pray and ask God for, because it’s not natural to this world. It’s like wisdom and discernment. They are gifts. Once asked for, they are received. And gifts from God better your life in all areas. So my challenge for you is to be way more intentional about having a servant’s heart. Follow after Christ example and serve everyone around you. You’ll find that the more you give to others, the more full you feel.
Isn’t it a wonderful life?
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