“Service is the overflow which pours from a life filled with love and devotion. But strictly speaking, there is no call to that. Service is what I bring to the relationship and is the reflection of my identification with the nature of God. Service becomes a natural part of my life. God brings me into the proper relationship with Himself so that I can understand His call, and then I serve Him on my own out of a motivation of absolute love. Service to God is the deliberate love-gift of a nature that has heard the call of God. Service is an expression of my nature, and God’s call is an expression of His nature. Therefore, when I receive His nature and hear His call, His divine voice resounds throughout His nature and mine and the two become one in service. The Son of God reveals Himself in me, and out of devotion to Him service becomes my everyday way of life.” (Oswald Chambers)
That’s a bit different than how we usually serve, isn’t it?
The first week Christian and I met with our service life group, we asked our six students why we serve. They gave some different answers: “Because it feels good when you help someone.” “Because there are lots of people less fortunate than us.” “Because Jesus tells us to.” I liked the last answer because she didn’t say she liked to serve, or even pretend to like it. She knew that because Jesus commanded it then she should do it.
If my memory serves me right, no one said we should serve because we love God. Not that the other reasons are bad, but those aren’t where service should start.
Not that I am a very good example.
As of late, I’m afraid my service has not been motivated by love. Otherwise I wouldn’t resent it so much. Especially in the past five days, the workload has been so much I simply want to leave, forget about it all and not come back for a long, long time.
The other day I was singing a song called “The More I Seek You,” and a new verse Auntie Tina wrote says, “Jesus, your love is overwhelming me.” I feel like I am overwhelmed by everything except that. I kept singing, hoping it would become true, but the weight has yet to be lifted.
What is motivating my service?
Duty. The things I am doing now are my job. It’s straightforward. I am expected to do them and my whole life I have not been one to fall short of expectations placed on me.
Pride. I want the cantata to go well. I don’t want it to fail. I don’t want the holiday program to fail. Partly for the children, but also because it will reflect poorly on me. I want to do all of this and handle everything with such grace and peace that people look at me and shake their heads and say, “I really don’t know how she manages all that.”
The children. I want them to learn how to read. It will get them far. I want them to learn discipline and commitment, so I put in extra time to teach them that. I want them to grow up into people who love and respect God. I also want them to like me, but that is not a priority.
If we serve without love, it is as much use as a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal, something that serves no purpose and of which people are happy to be free. I don’t want that to be me. I don’t want that to be anyone.
Can you have service without joy? Not when it is motivated by absolute love.
The other day Christian was stressed about some things (he also has a major workload at the moment) and expressed how fed up he was with all he had to do at work and that his house and kitchen were a mess but he had no time to clean. Even though my schedule was also full, while he was gone I went to his house and washed all his dishes (there were a lot). He didn’t ask me to. In fact, if he had I would have done it grudgingly. He did not expect me to. Normally, I don’t mind washing dishes, but this time I loved it because I knew it would make him happy. I washed and rinsed and stacked with joy and it was honestly the best part of my day. When I finished, I left a full dish rack and large kitchen towel stacked with dishes—and when I say stacked I mean stacked. It is one of my skills. Next to the towel, though it was probably obvious, I left an index card that said, “because I love you”.
Every act of service we do should carry that message. I should be able to tack it onto every ballet lesson, every cooked meal, every library time and every game with the children. I can’t remember the last time I served with joy just because I knew it would make God happy.
Some time last year, six-year-old Isaac was at my house playing. He handed me an empty soda bottle and told me to keep it. Now, if I kept everything a child told me to keep, my house would be chock-full of toys, cardboard boxes, rubber bands, coloring sheets, glitter, bottle caps, hats, plastic bags, birthday presents, letters from sponsors, toothbrushes—you name it. I will admit, often I tell them yes and then throw it away and they never know. But don’t tell the children.
I tried to give the bottle back to him, knowing he likes to play with things like that outside, but he insisted. Finally, I asked him, “Isaac, why do you want me to keep your bottle?”
Without missing a beat, he said, “Because I love you.”
He caught me off guard. In two-and-a-half years, that is the only time one of the children has volunteered those words. Sure, they repeat when I say I love them, but this came out of nowhere. Isaac could have told me to keep a rotten, dead rat for that reason and it still would have made my week. (I sentimentally held onto the bottle for a few weeks, and then it too ended up in the trash can. Don’t tell Isaac. But I still think it was very sweet of him.)
“Because I love you.” It’s like the beautiful antithesis of “because I said so.”
How often we miss that little note from God.
God, why did you send Jesus? “Because I love you.”
Why do you forgive us even when we turn away from you over and over and over again? “Because I love you.”
Why did you make it rain all morning so inside is cozy and outside is not too hot today? “Because I love you.”
Why did you bring encouraging friends into my life when I couldn’t pull myself up? “Because I love you.”
In college I heard a speaker at a conference, and I don’t remember her name and I don’t remember what she talked about except for this one tidbit: “It was then that I realized I was asking the wrong question. Instead of asking, ‘How can I serve you, Lord?’ I should have been asking, ‘How can I love you, Lord?’”
There is a right way to start, and it is not with the act of service.
A resounding gong, my ass. I want to be an expression of God.
