YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW – A Servant’s Heart

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Today’s Blog Post


YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW – A Servant’s Heart

The Servant’s Heart… what a foreign concept in 2011

Most everyone that I know is doing what they do pretty much for themselves. They do it because they like doing what they do and they are getting something out of it. Most of what they do is because they really like it. There is personal benefit.

It is easy to be involved if your kids or grandkids are getting something out of it. You can be involved in a club if the club is doing what you like to do. You can continue in something and will continue if what is happening is to your benefit… but when that stops… so will your involvement. That usually is the case.

Once the children grow out of what they were doing, or the club/activity age requirements stay the same… the kids go to the next group… and so do mom and dad. Grandparents will follow as well.

This is particularly noticeable in church in 2011. Most members have served in one job or another as they progress through the system and its programs. As a senior they belong to the last group and will attend if it interests them. But most of the seniors sitting there were the best teachers ever. They were involved over the years as they followed their families through what was available. They gave leadership and reason to what the whole group did.

But something changed… and I doubt that it was a recent change either.

They stopped being servants… but rather became owners operators of whatever group they were involved in.

They stopped deriving benefits from the serving… and would only realize benefits if they could control it.

Often I think this has come from the kind of community jobs that they have or had. Working in factories or the plodding kind of job that they carried on for all those years was hard. There was little personal benefit achieved. Most of what was done was benefiting the large corporation that they served each week. It was a job.

Any other extra activities outside of the job that might be looked into would have to be a benefit to themselves. If they didn’t they would not attend or get involved.

And for years we have sold people on what we have as an activity to offer them… with the idea that they will benefit from being involved…

What a difference from the way that it used to be. Some of you actually still remember what it was like!

What if I did something because it would benefit someone else and not me?

What if my actions were actions that would not benefit me directly.. but only benefit someone else?

Would you do it? Would you stay involved and care about what you are doing – if there was no personal benefit?

This past season leading up to Christmas time I was involved in the Peterborough Festival of Trees as some of you know. It is a community activity that is committed to raising funds for our Hospital and Health Services in our area. The money raised helps the Hospice Program and the purchase of medical equipment of our community.

In preparing for the big festival there were thousands of tasks that are done by volunteers. One task was to unpack and set up the Christmas Trees in a huge warehouse. I had heard about this activity while speaking to one of the leaders that coordinates this task. I asked if my wife and I could help her. She was stunned. Most people she had helping were coerced into helping by an already involved spouse.

When we arrived at the warehouse the regular folk that had been involved for years looked at me and asked a pointed question… “Why did you get involved and come today?” The job was thankless. The job was not something that any of the public even knew about. There had to be a reason why we would give up five hours one night and work so hard.

My answer was simple, “I just want to help – to see what I could do to help you folks that work so hard without being seen.”

The man that asked that beamed from ear to ear.

There was no overtime pay. There was no name in the paper after we did the work. We had simply become part of the whole festival and contributed what we could.

Yesterday I traveled to Toronto to meet some students and their professors. It was a free day. I was not paid to do this. We had a wonderful time with the young adults.

As we left I realized a new thing… it kind of settled in on me as we walked away. In the past years I was paid to do the kind of thing that I did yesterday for nothing. The satisfaction was deep and maybe greater than I have felt for a long time. It was very good. That feeling of a deep smile rising up within me… was more than words can describe.

I need to give myself away. I need to sow seeds of kindness and have the heart of a servant… serving others.

There is a difference between being a Slave and a Servant… it is all about the attitude of the heart.

In what way have you or are you serving your community? If you haven’t tried this yet… are you willing to now give yourself away? Do you need a suggestion as to where a great place would be to begin your journey?

~ Murray Lincoln ~
http://www.murraylincoln.com/