Others

Others.

That’s the word. That’s what serving is all about.

A few weeks ago, I was sitting in service at Gateway’s Central campus, listening to Kenny Green speak. He talked about this word, and how he learned what it meant to serve while he was facing the option of prison time or a chance to serve with the Salvation Army. The people there served him as he came in a broken man. He was sick. He needed help. He needed.

He needed…..

When Kenny was in need, he was given two paths. One lead further into darkness. The other lead to light. Taking the path to light meant bringing into the light what he had tried for so long to keep in the darkness. The crazy thing is when he did step into the light, he figured out that bringing darkness to light was nowhere near as painful as he expected. In fact, it was the most freeing action he could have taken. by being served, he saw what it meant to be servant. He saw that he could serve those around him; the “others” around him.

I bring up Kenny’s sermon because it spoke to me, and hit me deeply.

Besides Kenny talking about his story, he also brought up why many of us so often don’t serve when we want to; when we are called to. We don’t serve others because we don’t think we are good enough to serve. This is what really hit me. I have been serving in various areas for years now, but I constantly struggle to keep the “thief” at bay. The “thief”, the “father of lies”; the devil has many names, but his overarching desire is to keep us from being who God meant for us to be. The enemy doesn’t want us to serve anyone.He doesn’t want us to look without ourselves, but to keep looking only within. Looking without means recognizing others to serve. It means our eyes and hearts being open to someone other than ourselves and something greater than ourselves.

 

Kenny talked about how we so often look at others who are serving and compare ourselves to them.

“I’m not a good person like them.”

“My life is so screwed up. How could I have anything to contribute to helping others?”

“I’m so broken. God can’t use me.”

“I need to fix my brokenness before God can ever use me.”

“I’m not qualified to be used by God.”

“Why would God use me?”

Ever asked these questions or had these thoughts?

I can tell you I have. Even after years of serving I still hear that liar’s voice. I still see the “thief” trying to steal away my joy by reminding me how broken I am.

When Fish (Melissa Fisher) asked me to go on a mission trip to Haiti in 2016, I tried to talk her out of me being a good person to take. I came up with every excuse I could think of to not go.  There’s a whole story about why and how I ended up on that trip, but the short of it is this…

You do not have to be qualified. You don’t have to have your life together. In point of fact, God isn’t looking for the qualified or those with their lives well put together. He’s looking for the sick; the broken. He uses us when we don’t believe we are at all ready. He puts us in contact with those who are broken just like we are. He uses our brokenness to heal others. What we often don’t realize in the moment, is that he is also healing us through our serving.

All he asks is that we are willing. He’ll take care of the rest.

 

So here’s what I’m getting to.

Serving isn’t something only the spiritually mature can do. You can serve where ever you are. You will never know who you may positively affect until you are willing to step out in faith.

Step out.

Serve.

Test God.

See what he does when you faithfully serve.

Trust me on this. God will heal and bless you just as much, if not more than the others you are serving.

So what are you waiting for???