He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to first must be last of all and servant of all.” – Mark 9:35 (NRSV)
What does that passage mean to you? What do you think great is? Have you met someone who served all those around you? Was he/she somehow first? How so? How have you served others? Did you experience greatness in those moments? What was it like?
The following story was sent to me:
A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package.
“What food might this contain?” The mouse wondered - he was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap. Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning. “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!”
The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, “Mr. Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it.”
The mouse turned to the pig and told him, “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!” The pig sympathized, but said, “I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in my prayers.”
The mouse turned to the cow and said, “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!” The cow said, “Wow, Mr. Mouse. I'm sorry for you, but it's no skin off my nose.”
So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer's mousetrap alone.
That very night a sound was heard throughout the house -- like the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey. The farmer's wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught. The snake bit the farmer's wife. The farmer rushed her to the hospital, and she returned home with a fever.
Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup's main ingredient.
But his wife's sickness continued, so friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig.
The farmer's wife did not get well; she died. So many people came for her funeral; the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them.
The mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the wall with great sadness.
The next time you hear someone is facing a problem and think it doesn't concern you, remember -- when one of us is threatened, we are all at risk. We are all involved in this journey called life. We must keep an eye out for one another and make an extra effort to encourage and help one another.
And perhaps that is a tale of why serving others makes us first. In serving others we acknowledge their importance in the eyes of God, and someway discover that they are important to us as well because indeed all life is connected. In a world that believes being great, being number one involves riches, or fame, or prestige, or knowledge, or whatever else, God still declares that being first is seeing others as special and deserving of our attention and our service.
With hope and joy,
Garrett
Showing posts with label service. Show all posts
Showing posts with label service. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
The Way to Become Great
“But it should not be that way among you. Whoever wants to become great among you must serve the rest of you like a servant. Whoever wants to become the first among you must serve all of you like a slave. In the same way, the Son of Man did not come to be served. He came to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many people.” – Mark 10:43-45 (NCV)
What does it mean to serve others? How has Jesus served you? How did Jesus serve people when he walked on earth? Do you know people who are great because they serve? What are they like? Do you serve others?
The following story is from Todd Urick, a member of First Presbyterian. Currently he and his family are serving as missionaries on the island of Eleuthera:
When moving to Eleuthera I carried with me the attitude of going to help the people of this 3rd world country. “I have so much, they have so little.” It is my job to help these impoverished people. At the beginning of every week the staff of Bahamas Habitat are given a list of things to get done by weeks end. It was a Wednesday evening when I was reviewing my list of things that still needed to be completed within the next two days when one of our new long term volunteers handed me a paper to read on the differences of fixing, helping and serving. This paper focused on not how can I help, but how can I serve. That next morning around 8am, I was getting started on my list of to-do’s that needed finished by the next day when one our staff members quickly found me and asked if I could go to the north part of the island, about 1hr 30 min. away and pick up a group of high school students and bring them back south past our settlement, which would be another 2 hours to attend a music workshop. Here’s the catch, they needed to be picked up by 10am. The first thing that crossed my mind was, I have so much to get done here at camp, neither these kids nor this workshop has anything to do with Bahamas Habitat and after calculating driving time for the morning and driving time to get these kids back home, over 6 hours of my day would be spent behind the wheel our giant green school bus hauling kids back and forth. After about a minute of deliberating and wondering why I had to be the one to do this, I was suddenly reminded by this little voice, “you are here to serve.” The receipts can be entered into quickbooks later, the bush waiting to be cleared will be here when I get back, the new screen doors aren’t going anywhere and can be hung tomorrow, but this opportunity to serve 32 high school students by getting them to this music workshop in which they could get instruction on playing guitar, drums, dance, etc... may never come again. So for the next 2 days I spent around 3 hours in the morning and 3 hours in the evening serving these students. I began relationships with some of these students that I guarantee will last a lifetime.
From this point on, anything that comes up that’s not on my daily to do list, whether it be building a desk for Emma’s teacher or repairing Ms. Whyte’s toilet, I willingly do with no hesitation knowing I am here on this earth to serve. Serving is different from helping. Helping is based on inequality; it is not a relationship between equals.
When you help, you use your own strength to help those of lesser strength. But to serve, we draw from all of our experiences. Our limitations serve, our wounds serve, even our darkness can serve. The wholeness in us serves the wholeness in others and the wholeness in life. The wholeness in you is the same as the wholeness in me. Service is a relationship between equals. No longer am I on Eleuthera to help these people, but to serve my brothers and sisters in Christ. We are all equal in our Father’s eyes. – Todd
For those who are disciples of Jesus Christ it can be no other way! We are children of God not to be served but to serve others. Pray today that you become great and you will soon discover where you can be of service.
With hope and joy,
Garrett
What does it mean to serve others? How has Jesus served you? How did Jesus serve people when he walked on earth? Do you know people who are great because they serve? What are they like? Do you serve others?
The following story is from Todd Urick, a member of First Presbyterian. Currently he and his family are serving as missionaries on the island of Eleuthera:
When moving to Eleuthera I carried with me the attitude of going to help the people of this 3rd world country. “I have so much, they have so little.” It is my job to help these impoverished people. At the beginning of every week the staff of Bahamas Habitat are given a list of things to get done by weeks end. It was a Wednesday evening when I was reviewing my list of things that still needed to be completed within the next two days when one of our new long term volunteers handed me a paper to read on the differences of fixing, helping and serving. This paper focused on not how can I help, but how can I serve. That next morning around 8am, I was getting started on my list of to-do’s that needed finished by the next day when one our staff members quickly found me and asked if I could go to the north part of the island, about 1hr 30 min. away and pick up a group of high school students and bring them back south past our settlement, which would be another 2 hours to attend a music workshop. Here’s the catch, they needed to be picked up by 10am. The first thing that crossed my mind was, I have so much to get done here at camp, neither these kids nor this workshop has anything to do with Bahamas Habitat and after calculating driving time for the morning and driving time to get these kids back home, over 6 hours of my day would be spent behind the wheel our giant green school bus hauling kids back and forth. After about a minute of deliberating and wondering why I had to be the one to do this, I was suddenly reminded by this little voice, “you are here to serve.” The receipts can be entered into quickbooks later, the bush waiting to be cleared will be here when I get back, the new screen doors aren’t going anywhere and can be hung tomorrow, but this opportunity to serve 32 high school students by getting them to this music workshop in which they could get instruction on playing guitar, drums, dance, etc... may never come again. So for the next 2 days I spent around 3 hours in the morning and 3 hours in the evening serving these students. I began relationships with some of these students that I guarantee will last a lifetime.
From this point on, anything that comes up that’s not on my daily to do list, whether it be building a desk for Emma’s teacher or repairing Ms. Whyte’s toilet, I willingly do with no hesitation knowing I am here on this earth to serve. Serving is different from helping. Helping is based on inequality; it is not a relationship between equals.
When you help, you use your own strength to help those of lesser strength. But to serve, we draw from all of our experiences. Our limitations serve, our wounds serve, even our darkness can serve. The wholeness in us serves the wholeness in others and the wholeness in life. The wholeness in you is the same as the wholeness in me. Service is a relationship between equals. No longer am I on Eleuthera to help these people, but to serve my brothers and sisters in Christ. We are all equal in our Father’s eyes. – Todd
For those who are disciples of Jesus Christ it can be no other way! We are children of God not to be served but to serve others. Pray today that you become great and you will soon discover where you can be of service.
With hope and joy,
Garrett
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