Serve God
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The word “serve” carries two opposite connotations. In the first place, when we hear the word serve our thoughts may go immediately to the word servant or slave. We picture one, such as a bonded servant, who is forced to do menial tasks for a harsh master. Given the United State’s history of slavery and the disregard for human life, we can see why such a meaning would jump to our minds. I think this kind of serving is not serving at all. This is forced labor.
Service is voluntary. It is given in love. This truer meaning of service is the picture of a nurse tending to the needs of an injured man or the snapshot of a daughter lovingly caring for her invalid mother. Genuine service, however, does not require a hurting, incapacitated person who cannot care for himself or herself. Service can also be rendered toward one who is quite capable without help. The abilities of the one receiving services is irrelevant because service is an act of love toward another. It is the giving of ourselves to aid another simply because we care and want to lighten the other’s load.
A servant listens for the needs of others. When those needs are heard, the servant responds to meet those needs. This is one way to live out our servanthood. The other way is a bit more subtle and a bit more difficult. A true servant also anticipates the needs of others and acts before the request is even made. The servant cares enough to “know” the loved one deeply in such a way that needs are simply known without the exchange of instructions or words.
Therefore, one of the ways we love God is to become God’s servant. I’m not talking here of entering into some forced labor wherein we are scripted to do whatever God desires regardless of the pain and suffering it causes us. In some of my early encounters with Christianity, this was the connotation of service I incorporated. When we serve God out of obligation and with such bitterness this kind of service fosters, our actions cannot possibly be demonstrations of love.
To become God’s servant means we care deeply for what God desires. We take the time to listen close to what God wants of us in our world and we respond in order to grant that godly desire. Further, we enter into an intimate relationship with God that is finally able to anticipate God’s desire in every situation we find ourselves in. When we get to that point we no longer have to stop and ask God what he desires of us. Rather, we respond immediately in godly ways, ways that fulfill God’s purposes.
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