As we near the holidays, our minds often turn to giving. We have our list of people and ideas of what kinds of gifts to buy for them, and we also likely think about charitable giving as well. Any organization we’ve given to at any point in our lives seems to come out of the woodwork seeking those year-end donations to help them reach their goal. In addition to financial gifts, we may also spend time serving meals or collecting items for people who don’t have the same resources we do. Too often though, this mindset gets siloed into November and December and largely ignored the rest of the year.
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| Photo Credit: Karl Fredrickson |
It’s easy to make excuses about why we don’t serve. One guy who had some pretty great excuses to not serve is David. In the story we read in 1 Samuel 18:1-11, he had already been anointed the next king over Israel and was a praised war hero who had slain the giant Goliath. Now he was just biding his time until King Saul abdicated or passed away and David could assume the throne. But instead of spending all his time on military missions continuing to build his prowess, or boasting to all the people in the town about how great he was, David spent time playing his lyre for King Saul. As thanks, King Saul, overcome by an evil spirit, tried to pin David to the wall with a spear. Instead of leaving immediately though, David continued to play, giving King Saul the chance to try to kill him a second time (and failing again). David knew something very important about service: It wasn’t about him. Already he had seen God prepare him with the skills he needed to defeat Goliath, and David continued to trust and serve God in his role in Saul’s household as a lyre player.
When we’re firmly rooted in God and seeking to love him well in all we do, service should be a natural outflow of that desire. But it gets complicated in the demands and busyness of everyday life. Work, friends, kids, hobbies, spouses, exercise, school, and so many other good, honorable ways to spend our time and energy can easily feel like they’re taking all of our time and energy. Serving can seem like just one more thing to add to the never-ending list of what we should be doing, which can lead to guilt if we’re not doing it.
As we saw in the story of David though, it wasn’t fun or convenient for him to be serving King Saul. The uncomfortable truth is that God isn’t interested in our comfort. He wants our love, devotion, and yes, sacrifice--and sacrifice will sometimes hurt. If we approach serving by always trying to wedge it into our lives in the spare bits of time here and there, maybe we need to ask ourselves if it’s really service at all, or simply something we’re doing to make ourselves feel better. Our acts of service aren’t just for the people we serve (though they may benefit); service is a thank you note to God for what he’s done.
Fortunately, there are many ways we can serve. We can serve by changing how we go through our everyday lives, adjusting our perspective so we see ways to serve not as burdens but as opportunities to put hands and feet on our thankfulness. But serving might also look like adding things to our everyday lives. Opportunities to serve our neighbors and community abound, and many places are in need of dedicated people willing to serve well, whether it’s at a church or another organization. Our motivations might not always start out perfectly pure, but we can trust that God will use what we’re offering and transform us in the process as well. How would our service change if, as we do it, we thought of each action as adding another word to a thank you note to God? Thanks for the skills we can use to serve others, thanks for the financial resources we can give away, thanks for the people we serve and the people we serve with?
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