I grew up in a family where serving was part of life. It was just what we did, whether helping someone move house, put the Christmas decorations up at church or stay behind and stack chairs, we tried to serve others well wherever we went.
This willingness to serve at every opportunity has led me to some crazy places, one such place was called Splashy Fen (South Africa’s answer to Glastonbury) with a charity called Red Frogs. Red Frogs is a charity than goes to festival with the sole aim being to care and help people and to offer a safe space away from noise and people.
Over Easter weekend 2018, while most of you would have been enjoying time with your family, I was mopping up sick from the cheeks of drunk people, carrying people back to their tent after having taken drugs or just making pancakes for people who had forgotten to bring any food for the weekend.
It rained the whole weekend and as a result wellies became the footwear of choice. Over the weekend, I got no more than 15 hours sleep and was cold and wet constantly.
Another was a 13 hour shift in a fruit cutting factory without being paid, (I’ll save this story for another time), but in both these things the memories were incredible and I have learnt more about myself and others during those times than any other time in my life. When we serve, we learn, we grow and we develop Christlike character.
Serving isn’t about just doing what we like, what we are good at or what looks the best, it’s about doing everything we can do in order for something to happen. It is about stepping in even when we don’t want to, and sticking around until the job is done.
13 hours in a box at 1 degrees Celsius isn’t fun. Getting up at 3am to help drunk people in the rain isn’t fun. However, I wasn’t in either of those places because it was going to be fun, I was there to serve! It was a blessing to be used by God to serve those no one else wanted to touch and do things no one else wanted to do. As much I wanted warmth and bed at the end, if someone asked me “would you do it again?” the answer would be “yes,” every time.
I haven’t told these stories to boast, I am not perfect and I could tell many more stories of times where I have said no to serving others. I also don’t want to make you feel guilty about not serving.
God wants YOU more than He wants what you can do.
When we talk about serving, we need to make sure that ‘our doing for God’ doesn’t push out ‘our being with God.’
God wants you before you do anything.
He loves you before you do anything right and even after you do something wrong. He loves you as you are. That won’t change.
Serving God doesn’t get you to heaven.
That doesn’t mean we don’t serve, it means we need to serve with the right heart.
Serve from a place of knowing that we are loved before we do anything.
Serving because you are aware of the incredible gift you were given when Jesus died for you is a beautiful and invaluable gift to the world.
But serving to earn God’s or others peoples love, with bitterness and resentment in heart leads to death and will not lead to transformation or freedom.
Serving can be fun, it brings joy, it helps us learn and grow and it can bring us closer to God if we do it from the right place.
You are loved.
You are chosen.
You are created in His image.
You are created to serve.
Serve out of love from God and for other people.
God put you here for a purpose, so what are you waiting for?