Service

 Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.  If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen. (I Peter 4:10-11)

          How’s your serve? Of course, the moment I ask that question, part of me starts whining about what a horrible servant I am. I just finished weeding someone else’s garden, not perfectly, but that makes two and my own garden isn’t as weeded as I’d like it to be. On the other hand, I’ve read conversations in which someone grumbles to another person about how much he had done for the other person’s identity group, and how ungrateful that identity group was. I suspect we tend to either under-estimate our service to others, or over-estimate it. Somehow, I suspect that the scorekeeping involved is the wrong way to do it.

          Serving shouldn’t be about us. The person who pats himself on the back for all the good he’s done for someone or some group is serving himself, not the person or group even if the person or group benefits in some way. The person who stabs himself in the back for failing to serve as well as he thinks he should is also serving himself.

          Second, serving is present tense. What has gone before doesn’t matter. It probably was good, but it’s done. What can yet be done is far more important. I don’t care if you’re a brain surgeon and have saved hundreds of lives, if you can’t hold the door open for someone today, you’re not serving.

          Third, serving is not degrading or menial. The person who feels insulted that another person asks her to take something off a high shelf for the other person has a bad attitude. Picking up other people’s trash is serving just as much as doing surgery. No task should be considered beneath us.

          So, whatever you can do to serve others, you’re supposed to do. Yeah. I open my trunk of “gifts” and sigh. I’m not good enough at anything. I try to do something I think I’m good at and get shot down. Not good enough. Not good enough. Nobody needs anything I have to offer and I stab myself in the back because I’m making it all about me.

          But there are weeds to pull. There are pieces of trash to pick up. There are plants to tend that feed butterflies or people or look pretty. There are critters and sights that can be shared with others. There are words – sometimes good words – that I can write. Is there something I can do right now? It doesn’t matter what I did, or didn’t do yesterday. It doesn’t matter what I might do tomorrow.

          Another small piece of the puzzle. While you are certainly not to be the main focus of your serving, your ability to serve is directly related to how you serve yourself. If nothing else, serving yourself well makes you more able to serve others. But serving yourself – or others – well doesn’t necessarily mean doing what they want. It means doing what they need.

          And a hint. If you can find a way to serve 2, 3, 15, or 500 people at the same time, you’ve done more good, but neglecting the needs of the one means that you’ve failed.