Day 2: Called to Serve
Isaiah 58:9b-12
“If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, 10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. 11 The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. 12 Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.
For Reflection
I still remember very clearly the moment of my “conversion” in terms of how I saw service. In 2008 I was invited along on my first work project to Liberia. We were going to help build a compound for a company that installed wells. Well, that and visit some new friends at a local church and orphanage. From the moment we arrived, though, I was exposed to poverty and hardship like never before. The work was frustrating. The tools were cheap. The heat stifling. I caught myself utterly frustrated time and again. In all honesty, I couldn’t figure out what, if anything, I was contributing to the project.
But one day we visited the church and orphanage. Most of the kids there had lost their families during the brutal 15-year civil war that had recently decimated the country. They were war orphans. I was asked to help serve food to the kids. One big bowl of rice with a little meat-flavored sauce on top. The only meal they ate each day. I’m still not sure exactly what it was precisely that started it all, but suddenly I was crying. I mean really crying. Snot bubbles and all.
It was embarrassing and I wasn’t sure what to do or where to crawl. I looked at these children and expected such misery because their awful situation. Their abject poverty and lack of opportunity. They should have been miserable and feeling sorry for themselves. That’s how I had felt this whole time here (and I was going home next week).
But their joy! They danced and sang and played. It was as if they didn’t even know they were supposed to be miserable. As the day went on and I took it all in with wide-eyed wonder it hit me: I came here out of an act of charity—to do something benevolent. To be nice. That’s what good Christians do, right? They are charitable toward the less fortunate. But it wasn’t charity I felt. It was envy. And it caught me off guard, sticking in my throat and catching my breath between sobs. As I handed them food with tears coming down my face, I wanted them to give me some of whatever it was that they had. I wanted an exchange. They obviously knew or felt things I didn’t. They had exposed my own poverty and I wanted them to give to me.
Since that day, I have never looked at charity the same. In fact, I don’t use that word anymore. It’s too condescending. Too arrogant. We are called to serve because service is God’s gift to us before it is ever his commandment. Service pulls us outside of ourselves. We are all inherently selfish, self-interested, self-obsessed. Serving the others begins to free us from the prison of self-interest. It teaches me that I don’t just do good for the purpose of changing the world around me; I also do good because it changes me. And I need to be changed. I need a Savior and I need to be changed by the other. Service cultivates humility and it is more reciprocal than we could have ever imagined.
For Discussion
Do you believe that service is God’s gift to us? Why or why not?
What is the most joyful experience you have ever had with giving? Did you give or receive? Share the story!