Look for Places to Serve
By Jeanne Rogers
Week of September 5, 2004
"You have been called to live in freedom — not freedom to satisfy your
sinful nature, but freedom to serve one another in love." (Galatians 5:13)
Lysa TerKeurst was on overload when she took her three young children and a friend’s child to a fast food restaurant for lunch. Her husband’s prolonged recovery from surgery had added the nursing role to her daily responsibility of their home and three, restless, young children. That morning, weary and weak, she had prayed, “Lord, please fill in the gaps.”
During the short drive, she struggled to keep a good attitude, despite having to referee sibling spats. She felt her blood pressure rise as she placed the large order while keeping an eye on the four active children in a booth across the room.
A woman came up behind her, put her hand gently on Lysa’s shoulder and said, “I’ve got your napkins and straws, and I will put them on your table.”
After the food was placed before each child, Lisa found the woman sitting with her family and thanked her. “When you entered the restaurant,” the woman explained, “God told me to help you.”
Lysa walked back to her booth with tears in her eyes. She was touched by the lady’s service but even more grateful for the way God had answered her cry for someone to fill in the gaps.
Jesus told his disciples that He had not come to earth to be served, but to serve. Daily, He taught them with His words and demonstrated with His actions how to express the love of His Father.
Near the end of His life, He performed the lowest role of a servant by washing His disciples’ feet. He used a very practical action to teach them how to love each other and extend their ministry to the people after He was gone.
In verse 17 Jesus gives a final command, “You know these things — now do them! This is the path of blessing.” (John 13:17 - NLT)
Aren’t we all looking for the path of blessing? Jesus showed us that having the heart of a servant is the way to find that path. How often do we pass up ministering a practical service that expresses love to people who are lost or perhaps crying out to God as Lysa was? If we are focused only on our personal agenda, we will miss the people God wants us to serve.
God pointed out a weary, young waitress to my husband at a restaurant where we ate. “I bet she is a single mother and is barely getting by on what she makes here,” my husband said. I watched as he discreetly pulled out all the cash from his billfold for a special gift which he referred to as her tip. He never wants any attention when giving, so he left to pay the bill. He asked me to place the money in her hand and tell her, “The Lord loves you, and He wants to bless you today.”
The Holy Spirit will assist us creatively with our service to others. I woke up one morning knowing I must go to the hospital to visit a young mother who had cancer. The doctors felt she was nearing the end and would not return home to her husband and their two small children. Many Christians had prayed for her healing but she had not had a miracle.
I asked the Lord, “What do you want me to do when I see her?” I heard very clearly, “Give her a full manicure.” I felt pretty silly, but I took all the necessary items to give her nails a beautiful manicure.
She laughed and uncovered her neglected nails after I hugged her and revealed my mission of love. The service that the Holy Spirit had me perform that day emptied the room of the anxieties that can often cloud the atmosphere of a friend near death. Visitors came and left during the thorough, but gentle cleaning, conditioning and polishing. We shared heart to heart -- even laughed at times, and I will never forget how God filled the room with His peace.
I knew -- when I left her bedside and at the funeral two weeks later -- that God had done something unexplainable in both of us that day. Just as clearly as Jesus must have heard, “Take the towel and basin of water and wash their feet,” I believe, we can hear God say where and how to serve people. We simply need to be in a position to hear Him speak, get His instructions, and obey.
This Week
Listen to the Holy Spirit’s voice direct you in serving others. Obeying Him can place you and the person you serve on the path of blessing.
Prayer
"Lord, open my eyes to see where I am to serve, and help me hear your instructions in how to love people your way. Amen."
