Reluctant Service

“Instinctively, we know how to serve ourselves and eliminate all else from distracting us in this pursuit.  We are NOT born servants.  Most of us (if not all of us) just naturally come into this world saying, ‘Serve me.’  We don’t naturally seek to serve others.  We are self-centered.  We’re completely immersed with our own needs from infancy.”-Michelle Anthony, “Spiritual Parenting”

I have been in a self-centered funk all week long.  After the passing of my sister-in-law, I’ve felt completely depleted.  I was aching to come back home and just feel somewhat normal.  I thought if I got back to my routine, I would feel better, restored and more like myself.  This did not happen.

This morning I woke up with Lincoln Brewster’s “Oxygen” stuck in my head for no particular reason.  “I need You more than oxygen…”  The lyrics went through my head as I showered.  As I was about to step out of the shower, I feel this tug on my heart… “Why don’t you clean the bathroom to serve your husband?”

I had been despondent for the entirety of this week.  I’d been very into myself, pulled out the “mom” card of responsibility, but once my husband came home, I had caved into myself.  Every.  Single. Day.  I had gotten short with him for no reason, in a way I hadn’t even been short with my kids.  I didn’t even really know why.  I think I'd just felt the weight of everything so much this past month, I was just aching to check out for a little bit.  I'd been very selfish with my attitude and thoughts and that came out with being snippy and irritable with my sweet husband just trying to get his bearings after losing his sister.  He was much more gracious to me than I deserved, and it made me thankful for the Jesus residing in and through him.

But now I'd been called in my heart this morning and I knew it.  In my heart, I initially went back to my own selfish attitude of the week... "But Saturdays are MY mornings.  It's my mom's morning.  It's my break from the kids and regular life!"  But I knew better.  I knew what I had to do.  So I got out of the shower and onto work.  I cleaned everything I could for almost half an hour.  Little did I know, my husband was awake and heard me bustling around.  I came out and he asked me, "What were you doing in there?"  "Just cleaning," I answered.  He turns to me and with all sincerity said, "Thank you.  I appreciate you."  My heart melted.  I'd been so self-absorbed, but this little bit of work made a difference for him. 

Why did I even think that turning inward and being selfish in my attitude would help me feel BETTER?  It makes no sense at all.  Then I remembered...Selfishness for me, and for all of us, is instinctual.  It actually goes AGAINST OUR NATURE to serve the way Christ has called us to.  Our inner nature fights any perspective outside of our own.  To get outside of our own self-interest actually takes WORK!  It takes the work of Christ to really be able to identify this selfishness within ourselves.  It is our responsibility to see outside of our own needs and desires and to pick up our cross daily and look at the world around us and say, "What needs to be done?  How can I serve?"  The cure to selfishness is not self-indulgence...it's self-denial.  Philippians 2:3-4 says, "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.  Each of you should not look only to your own self-interests, but also to the interests of others." 

Man, are you serious, God?!  Really?!  When it comes down to it, my inner self wants to fight this verse with everything I've got.  My gut instinct tells me that I want to be important, I want to matter, I want to be seen, and if I'm not I will fight to be seen and acknowledged.  So if that means I don't think my husband sees my work, how about I make a smart remark about how much I do every day?  THEN, I'll get my work acknowledged.  If I don't think I'm appreciated in another area or with other people, how about I just slide a small comment about my exhaustion level, or my long list of things to do, or all that I've sacrificed for that person?  Maybe THEN I'll get a thank you.  If I serve you, you darn well better acknowledge it.

Even writing my own thoughts and selfishness makes me cringe inwardly.  The Holy Spirit pulls on the reins of my heart and brings tears to my eyes even now.  How selfish am I?  I even serve sometimes FOR THE RECOGNITION!  If I don't get recognized, my inner self says, "Well, it wasn't worth it was it?"  Unbelievable, the hold of self and sin is enormous.  Even after years of walking the Christian walk, the fight for my selfish heart is still vigorous.  The struggle is real.  Satan is relentless.  But the Hound of Heaven (C.S. Lewis) is even MORE so!  All praise be to Him!  He fights stronger, longer and harder than our enemy.

If I am to become more like Christ and lay down my life and myself for others in front of them, it starts at home.  It starts in the mundane of cleaning showers when I don't feel like it but I know my husband will be blessed.  It starts with feeding my (many times) ungrateful children (even though they're a blast and I love them to death!).  It starts with taking care of our home and our garden.  It starts with a change of heart, asking God to take the sin out of me...but that is, as Scripture tells us, a refining FIRE.  He has to burn away impurities in order to reveal the true beauty of the gold underneath.

In closing, it reminds me of an analogy from A.W. Tozer's "The Pursuit of God" book, that I will never forget.  He said that sin is not like a burr to pluck off of our clothing.  It's not something God just flicks off of us.  Rather sin is built into us.  It's part of our heart and soul.  To ask God to remove sin and selfishness isn't like removing a thorn in our flesh.  Rather, it's like a major surgery.  It's cutting something out of us that is actually part of us.  It's God going into us with a scalpel and removing part of our actual bodies.  It's painful.  Sometimes excruciatingly so. It takes time and sometimes multiple surgeries to remove our deep seeded issues.  By asking God to remove our sin, we are asking him to do surgery on our souls.  It is not pretty, nor is it easy.  But it is necessary to make us more like him.

We are in this tough journey together until we reach Home.  The work is never complete until we are There.  But in the meantime, I know that I will need many more trips to the Operating Room.  As painstaking as that is, it's also okay with the Spirit in me.  Lord, do what you must.  I trust you.

The Duty Side of Love

I live in a culture that tells me if I don't feel something, then I shouldn't do it.  If I don't feel like it, it's not obligatory.  Obligation is generally considered negative.  Especially when it comes to love.  In love, if it's not felt you are not required to do it.  If I don't feel love, I have a plethora of options as to what I could do.

This month I've learned something that's just starting to really sink in: Duty is not evil.  Even in love and marriage.  Not only is it not an evil to be avoided, but it's crucial to the lifelong commitment of marriage.

My husband's sister passed away only six months after being diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer.  The original prognosis was 2-5 years.  She was 37.  My husband, while he had been able to prepare for what the future may hold since a few months ago, nothing can truly prepare you for the weight of that kind of grief.  We had planned months ago to come visit the family on the other side of the country for the first half of August.  Those plans got changed with the news she had been taken into the hospital with liver failure and was becoming somewhat delusional earlier this summer.  We changed our tickets to leave the next day.  Thus began what ended up being a month long journey of ups and downs and life being turned upside down.  In the middle of the feeling helplessness, we walked away from all sense of routine that had existed up unto that point.  But there was a deep sense that overwhelmed me...just be available for what my husband and his family needed.  I was to put my feelings aside for this time and push forward with doing everything I could be aware of where I was needed and how I could serve.

This led to a month, almost straight, of opportunities to serve, crucial conversations and many tears.  Through the complications of grief and family dynamics, there was this profound Strength that I could never have provided for myself.  I was amazed.  Every day the Lord provided me with the exact manna I would need to get through those hours and days.  I never had more than what I needed, but I was never short.  God gave my heart a laser focus on "Be there for them.  Let ME take care of you."  There were days of just aching for normalcy, of wanting to go home, of wishing none of this was real.  But it was real.  Very real.

Duty kicked in.  That sense of obligation from wedding vows that state for "better or worse."  This was definitely the latter.  My husband's grief and sadness was a distraction at best and an inundating and all-consuming wave at worst.  I temporarily lost my husband who was (and is) sensitive to my needs and desires, who saw me when no one else did, who always made me feel first (aside from Jesus).  All of a sudden, he was only seeing me from time to time, and the hurt of that only seemed to be amplified by the weight of trying to help as much as I could, to take the weight of the kids off his shoulders as often as possible, to make sure I was in touch with the needs of others in his family as often as I could be. 

But as tempted as I would be to look inwardly and feel sorry for myself, God graciously redirected me.  What if underneath His "service" of my needs was an underlying selfishness?  What if He only served when He felt like it?  What if He would have said "no" to the cross because of what it would cost Him?  What does living out His love look like, especially when the hurt of the other party is so deep? 

To be clear, these questions did NOT increase my feelings of love in such a depleted time.  What it did ignite in me was Love's companion, Duty.  Feelings are so fickle.  Sometimes I was fine, other times I was irritated, other times I was angry.  Feelings are a wonderful thermometer, but a terrible lord.  I couldn't let my feelings rule me and my reactions.  Because of my relationship with Christ, He calls me to live differently.  He's given me my emotions, I am not a robot.  However, He lived out the example of what it is to live a selfless life, to love the unlovable, to serve both the lowly and the haughty.  He loved the grieving.  He loved the hurting. He loved the selfish.  He loved the self-justifying.  But He never let their actions (and His feelings about them) trump what He knew He had to do.  He was a Man on a Mission.  He was there to extend the hand and love of God to the Earth.  This meant doing some things that, honestly, if it were me, I would've just thrown down the gauntlet and called down lightning from Heaven because I was so angry.  Jesus got down on His knees and cleaned the feet of the man who would betray Him.  Not because His feelings told Him to, but because it was right.  It was love.  It was humility.  It was His DUTY.  He was committed to the Father's story and His desire to redeem us.

Therefore, He called me in that time to live out Philippians 2.  By that I mean, put my desires and myself behind me so that I may love those He has put in front of me.  I needed to see that need and respond, not because I felt like it, but because I was committed to the Gospel of Jesus and I was committed to my husband and I'm bound for life to see him through all of that God has woven into the tapestry of his life.  There were no bubbly or kind feelings.  Just a duty that sprung up through compassion, that kind of compassion Jesus experienced as many were grieving the death of Lazarus in John 11.  It's a gut instinct that says not just that something is broken, but that immediately asks your heart, "What do I do?  I have to do something."  The duty that comes from that place is a moving experience, because it drills past my feelings and into the roots of where my commitment is.  The actions of the last month have come from a place of commitment, and not loving feelings.  But I've realized that's the power of commitment, at least the kind of commitment Jesus calls us to throughout Scripture.

Doing the things of love, without necessarily feeling the love you’re portraying, is not weakness...but strength.  As Tim Keller once said, "Do the things love requires, and the feelings will follow."  When we act in love despite not feeling love, we honor our Father.  We are honoring our commitment to His Gospel and His calling in our lives.  It actually causes the roots of love to be allowed to become deeper in the soil of His Gospel.  It makes our foundations stronger.  When we choose our commitments above our feelings to give Glory to God and honor what He has told us our lives are to look like, He sees us.  No matter the accolades or lack thereof, He fills us. 

Our duty to love our spouses and those who live in this world who bear His image, causes us to act when we don't have the motivation.  The "I have to" or "I need to" phrases in our life are often the things that make our commitment more steadfast than before.  I don't necessarily understand it, nor do I consistently practice it.  But this time has taught me that as life is going forward, I need to not have such a negative view of obligation in commitments.  That obligation can move us forward when other things that occur would normally cause a standstill in that relationship or in life as a whole.  This is crucial to the movement of life and the continuation of love.  Don't shy away from duty, but instead step up, even when it's really hard.  You will see so much more of the Gospel and His love for us, that didn't shy away from our pain or His own because of the commitment Jesus had to the Father and His plan of love for us.