Sometimes conviction, for me, is a gentle discomfort inside, where the desires of the Holy Spirit within me and my thoughts or actions don’t align. Sometimes conviction feels like a fist around my heart.
…
Here in northern Malaysia for the month of December, my team, Peculiar Treasures, is partnered with Team Fearless Unity. We are serving by helping our contacts, a precious family whom I’ll call the Timothy Family, whose ministry focus is showing the love of Christ to families in this predominantly Muslim nation. We do so by loving on the children of the community through the kindergarten school the Timothys started, and through character building classes for youth and adults a few nights a week.
I’ve been blessed to serve in the kindergarten, so for 5 hours a day for 5 days a week, I spend my time and energy (oh, so much energy) with about 12 little ones.
I love kids. I used to be active in the preschool ministry at my church, I’ve been a nanny, and my music students are typically under the age of 12. Being in the kindergarten has definitely been well within my comfort zone, and I gave myself mental pats on the back several times a day for how patient and loving my interactions with the students have been.
However, after school one day, someone was listening to the song “I Will Follow” by Chris Tomlin, which has this stanza:
Whom You love, I’ll love
How You serve, I’ll serve
Those 10 words caused a fist of conviction to grab my heart.
Even in my patience with the children, I often spent more time than I’d like to admit counting down the hours, sometimes minutes, until the school day would end. I focused on how to avoid being a bad picture of Jesus by a moment or two of impatience instead of focusing on how wholehearted my love and service to these precious children could be.
Christ said in Matthew 20, “…whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to first among you, let him be your slave. Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”
How intentional and wholehearted was Christ’s service to us. How I long to be like Him in the way I serve.
My prayer has become
Father,
Shape the way I serve.
Open my eyes to see lack,
which, through You, I can fill.
Sometimes, the lack I can fill is reading an alphabet book at story time, or singing “Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes” for the eightieth time. Whatever it may be, I confess with my whole being that I will perpetually strive to love how He loves and serve as He does.
I know it won’t always be easy, but I also know it will never be too hard.
From my heart,
Erika Venese
