Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.(Colossians 3:12)
Theme: If not You, then Who?
Today, we begin a 3-day review of the Discipline of Service. In consideration of our theme, we are going to focus on some practical examples instead of theory. I have asked three of our fellow participants to allow me to share their stories of Christian service. None of the three profess to be experts in the area but I know their stories will inspire us. The examples will come from three broad categories of service: 1) Serving our families; 2) Serving the community; 3) Serving the household of faith.
I am sure most of us will appreciate that serving our family can sometimes be a tremendous challenge. This is usually service up close where people know each other well, warts and all.
Yasmin’s Story of Service
I’ve heard people joking that one of the benefits of being a grandparent is that after the grandparents enjoy their time with the grandchildren the parents take them home and the grandparents get to relax. Yasmin, who has been participating in 40 Days of Discipline for a few years now, decided to pursue a more challenging path. She left the comfortable confines of her home in Trinidad, quit her job and moved back to the US to live in less comfortable accommodations so that she can help her daughter’s family. Her daughter and son-in-law have 2 young boys, 7 and 3 months old, and the pandemic recently precipitated a stressful move from one coast of the US to the other. So, as an act of service, Yasmin spends very long days helping the family out by being a nanny, housekeeper and driver at a time of her life when the conventional approach would be to relax. She understands the spiritual opportunity this challenge presents though. Her son-in-law is not a believer and she has the opportunity to be a witness to the entire family and expose the boys to the gospel.
Yasmin’s story is not a unique one, but when I heard her story I was really impressed with her honesty in describing how challenging serving is, the fact that she gets tired and frustrated sometimes, and her reliance on God to help her be a witness.
Our passage today reminds us of the qualities we need to serve others for God’s glory in circumstances like this. Please reflect on the passage and respond to the request and question below.
Request and Question:
- Please remember Yasmin in prayer.
- Do you have any lessons from serving your family that other participants could benefit from?