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Original Post: 4/20/08
“In service we experience the many little deaths of going beyond ourselves. Service banishes us to the mundane, the ordinary, the trivial.” Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline
I have many little deaths in my house. They live with me. They require dressing, bathing, feeding. They require noses (and other body parts) wiped. They make messes and unorganize order like a flash flood—without warning and with major damage. These little deaths hurt. The pain of putting aside my own needs, wants, and whims is wearying.
The choice to live beyond myself may seem mandatory. After all, my little deaths require care and I made the choice to raise them. Yes.
But what does my heart say? My heart does not have to embrace this life. I can be absent in spirit although present in body. I can go through the motions while eagerly welcoming the next best thing other than…this.
Or I can choose Him. The choice to live this life as an act of service to my Creator is to welcome living beyond myself. Service quiets my cry for recognition and welcomes humility. It offers me a chance to experience a thriving heart that gladly welcomes the duties and joys of each day with a new perspective on life. How does this inner transformation happen? I don’t know. But it does. Each day, each sacrifice in the small things, is a chance to live a humble and contrite existence that speaks to this: Jesus did not come to be served, but to serve. If my life could speak, who would it say is my master?
