This month my team and I were assigned to women’s ministry. At first, I was thrilled! I couldn’t wait to build relationships, interact, and share Jesus with these women. Then I was told we aren’t exactly building relationships. We were going to serve women by repainting their house and their rooms. I was super disappointed! Quite honestly I did not want to paint a house! I started to develop an attitude of entitlement and I kept thinking in my head “Ugh, I have to paint a house. What the heck?” God’s a funny God because throughout these past couple of weeks the Lord has changed my attitude from one of entitlement to one of service. He also showed me that our ministry does make a difference in more than one way.
From the start I thought to myself, “This house is already painted so what’s the point of repainting it? Isn’t it just a waste of time and I don’t know any of the women who are living in this house, so how am I supposed to see my ministry’s impact?” I was frustrated, annoyed, and tired day after day. As the days went by the Lord whispered to my heart. He told me, “Courtney this is what it looks like to wash their feet”. That hit me at my core! I felt bad and I knew this attitude was wrong, but I didn’t know how to fix it. I so badly wanted to make an impact and I knew that just getting the job done or checking it off of my list isn’t going to make an impact in the kingdom. My only response to the Lord was “Ok God, help me with this because I’m struggling and I don’t know what it means to wash their feet.” Just that simple prayer of surrender was enough for the Lord to slowly start breaking down my attitude. I went from feeling disappointed, annoyed, exhausted, and useless towards the beginning of the month to feeling joy, excitement, and gratitude towards the end of the month. So what changed?
What changed my attitude was this simple phrase… ‘I get to’. At the beginning of this week our ministry host went through a Bible study with us before we started painting. She talked about the difference between the phrases ‘I have to’ and ‘I get to’. If we have an attitude of ‘I have to’ then we miss the point of being here! When we have this attitude we are putting ourselves before others and holding onto our entitlement. That’s not the kingdom attitude! That’s not what the Lord has in store for us or who He has created us to be. The kingdom attitude is one of surrender, joy, thankfulness, and seeking Him in everything we do. Even if that’s spending hours a day painting a house! The more I thought about my attitude and the more I asked God to give me joy the more I realized how our ministry is really making a difference. I started realizing that through our ministry I got to impact our hosts, my relationship with God, and the women that live there.
The Lord revealed to me that through our ministry I got to impact our hosts. We have two long term female hosts in our ministry. Both of them really have a heart for the Lord and a heart for these women! They have such a big heart for women’s ministry that I’ve seen how much they have surrendered their time, energy, comfort, and resources into loving them well. I’ve realized that if we weren’t there to paint the house this month then our two ministry hosts would have to paint the whole house by themselves! That is a lot of work for two people to do! In that way the Lord used us to make a difference, inspire, encourage, and help them because they couldn’t do it alone.
God also showed me that our ministry has allowed us to impact our relationship with God! Almost the whole time I painted the house I was focusing on the task, my attitude, and how meaningless this is to the kingdom without realizing the impact our ministry had on me. I definitely did not have a kingdom mindset. Instead I was focusing on the wrong thing. In Luke 10:38-42, Jesus explains to Martha that it’s not about the task being finished, it’s more about our growth with Him, our attitude, and our obedience! I realize now I had so much love for myself at the beginning that I couldn’t love God, these women, my ministry hosts, or my team well. I’ve learned in this process of painting that God wasn’t so concerned about me actually painting; He was concerned about my obedience and kingdom attitude. It’s funny how God works because through painting and serving others I got to grow closer in my relationship with the Lord.
Ultimately, the Lord reminded me that I got to impact the lives of the women who live in the house. To me, repainting this house and these women’s rooms sounds like a very basic and irrelevant task, but for the women this was a huge deal! Many of these women come from very difficult circumstances and because of that they have never had the freedom to make their own decisions before. This simple act of giving them a choice to paint their own rooms gives them something that they were never able to have before. Painting their room the way they wanted it to gave these women freedom, importance, and honor. We were able to show how important these women were and honor them by simply humbling ourselves and washing their feet (A.K.A. changing the color of their room)! How wonderful is that!
This past month I’ve seen my attitude change so much. I no longer feel entitled. Instead I feel honored that I get to be apart of this ministry. This is what I want to strive for! I want to have an attitude of gratitude and be joyful in every task the Lord puts in front of me. In the end, serving is not about what I want, but it’s about humble ourselves, viewing God’s work from a higher perspective, and washing people’s feet. Now I get to be excited for the work that the Lord is giving me because I’m free from feeling like ‘I have to do a specific task’ and instead ‘I get to be apart of God’s plan’. The honor is all mine Papa!!!
