Should I Even If I Don’t Feel Like It?

We are a selfish creation. We start out being selfish as children. Watch any toddler playing alone as another toddler comes up and picks up a building block not being used. Many times the first toddler will scream, telling the new child that was his. We are not taught how to be selfish, it just comes natural. But we should have been taught how to share.

We may have been taught how to share, but through the years, we still have selfish tendencies. We are selfish with our adult toys and resources. We hold back our money in piles when we see someone else in need. We convince ourselves our time is more valuable than others. We may not scream like a toddler, but we silently squirm, sometimes unconsciously into a selfish state.

One aspect of selfishness seen and often discussed revolves around service and volunteering.

There may be a visible hole in the volunteer system, but instead of filling the void, we fill it with an excuse.

I believe we all have been a culprit in this selfishness. Even I have uttered an heartfelt excuse at the time, only to see it being laced with a covering of selfishness.

Where is the line between serving as an act of passion and an act of worship?

And can these two be interchangeable?

Can you serve wholeheartedly somewhere where you are not using your passion just to fill a temporary hole or is that counterintuitive?

I believe there are multiple answers to this question, but if we dig deep, there should be one underlying question that should be asked.

And the question is: What perspective am I looking it through?

When you decide something, are you looking how it will affect you? Or what you will get out of it? Or how you are feeling? Because if your first thought is all about you and your perspective, your perspective is a selfish one.

But if you ask, how will it affect others? Or will it improve someone else? Or will this act please God? Then we change the perspective from looking in a mirror to looking at the world.

You can stare at the mirror and either see beauty or disgust, but if you focus solely on your reflection, you’ll miss the background in the mirror. The background you are standing in that needs some extra work.

When you stare in the mirror, what do you see? A self image or the landscape behind?

I think we all will say we stare at our reflection, but in reality our reflection is just a little speck in the grand reflection. When we realize there is more to this world than us, we will see the world in a new perspective.

I truly believe you can use your passions and gifts when you serve. But do you think God calls you to only serve where you’ll shine? What if serving is also a time of refinement. Serving by doing things that are not pleasurable, but needing to be done.

I think we tend to bring up excuses in that scenario. That there is someone more qualified to serve there. Or I’m just not feeling it. Or I won’t get anything out of it. Or I just don’t want to and God wouldn’t make me do things I don’t want to do.

When we make excuses like this, we tend to run into the false sanctuary of selfishness.

If we look at Christ life, did He always do what He wanted to do? No. But yet, as an act of service He did it. Even as He was praying in the garden for God to take away the cross, He still followed.

If Christ followed to His painful death (and ultimately to His glorious resurrection) how can I not submit myself to a lowly act when a possible God-moment is around the corner of obedience?

What if service is looked at as an act of worship, because truthfully, worship isn’t about making us feel good. It’s about glorifying the One that deserves all praise. And what is more glorifying to the Father than serving those we are called to serve?

If we truly see the world as God sees it with all its brokenness, shouldn’t that cause our hearts to break? And if you see something that breaks your heart shouldn’t that evoke some action on your part? An action to move in that direction even if you have no clue what to do, but move.

When we rely on our feelings and our situation for whether to serve or not, who are you truly serving? God or your own will?

May we learn to ask ourselves the hard question. And may we be humble enough to accept the need to change our perspective.

God doesn’t ask for a skilled man, He just asks for a willing one to use. Because if He can cause the lame to walk and the dead to breath, anything is possible.

Anything.

Peace