Doulos. Bond Servant. 5 girls = One team.
When team changes came around during the Malawi month 6 debrief, I was expecting a change, but I would have no idea what would be coming. As the new teams were announced, my old team members (renamed from “Gateway” to “Team Travel size”) were called off. Jaclyn and Alyssa were put on Team Commissioned and Ken was asked to be a Squad leader…which left me. I heard my name announced and in a blur joined the other 4 girls that would make up my last World Race team.
After being on the race for 6 months, I was finally being put on an all girls team (something I thought would happen day one). I was also being split from three people that I had spent the majority of my race serving, living and traveling with. The many lessons I was learning at the same time came to a terrifying climax at this exact moment. I had joined the race battling the lies that I was unworthy of friendships or that no one would actually choose to be my friend or that there will always be a better friend than me. I struggled with feeling like the third wheel in my friendships believing I was unneeded and replaceable. I was just beginning to understand this idea of unconditional love. And then… BAM… the people that were walking with me through these lessons were stripped from my very presence.
Team Travel Size
I walked into the next month heavy with these lessons weighing on my heart. I went into the first dinner with my new team battling one of the biggest battles for my mind. I battled the lies that once again I was going to be forgotten, replaced and worthless to my two teammates (Alyssa and Jacyln) when they get the rest of the race to develop their friendship and I would not be with them. I battled the lies that only my old team would love me because they had to love me after 6 months. I battled the lies that I wouldn’t have any friends on my new team because they would choose someone else instead of me.
As I sat there at dinner, battling away lie after lie, my new team leader mentioned the need for us to choose a team name for our newly formed all girls get up. I cringed at the thought that I wouldn’t be under the title of Gateway anymore. So, I sat there. That was all I could do with my mix of emotions, knowing this new team was something I had waiting and anticipated for since the beginning of the race; yet I fought the battle of lies that were streaming in.
“Doulos, “ broke the silence that encircled me.
Doulos? I thought.
“Doulos? What does it mean?” was a unanimous question around the table.
One of my teammates continued on to explain this name. Doulos, in reference specifically to James 1:1, means a slave or bondservant. In the first verse or the first chapter of the book of James he introduces himself as, “James, the servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ…”. He is calling himself a doulos servant. A doulos servant is a servant who has been granted his freedom, yet chooses to give himself up to another- like a master. This can also be describes as being devoted to another to the disregard of one’s own interests. A doulos servant would show their choice to serve their master through their freedom by piercing their ear to the door post of their master’s house.
Dinner finished moments later and the 5 of us girls walked back as Team Doulos.
We went into the next month with the idea that we would live out our name. We wanted to serve. We wanted to serve our contacts, our teammates, and the people we would meet along the way. Little did I know this name would come to teach me a whole lot more than that.
The full definition and idea of Doulos came into the picture when I realized that I needed to choose to be a bondservant to my friendships. I needed to choose to be devoted to another with disregard of my own interests or feelings. I had always been the one waiting to be pursued by friendships, which had fostered in me the fertile ground to be disappointed around every corner growing the lies that I was unworthy, or unwanted. I needed to make the doulos choice to serve my friends. I needed to choose to fight for the friendships that I had always believed would fail. I needed to serve the friendships that were on my new team, my old team, on the race or off the race, and the ones that had been in my life for months or years. I needed to choose to abandon myself in the same way a servant does when he/she becomes a doulos servant. You think that was it?
The lessons continued to come, and they continued to show me the painful price that a doulos servant would pay when they made their choice to serve out of love and not obligation. It wasn’t as easy as just saying I would choose my friends and then I would understand and be freed of all the lies. I actually needed to see the root of the word Doulos from the reference in James 1:1. James announced himself as a bondservant, a doulos servant, to GOD and THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. I know the lesson I learned in pursuing my friends was exactly what I needed, but I also needed to choose to give myself to Christ through the freedom he has rewarded me.
Galatians 5:1 , “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.”
Christ gave me my freedom, and with that I choose to be a servant of Jesus Christ my Lord and Savior. I needed to choose to be a servant of the Lord and not a slave to the lies. If my learning joining wasn’t enough, I decided to make a memory out of it. I decided to get a tiny glimpse of the pain that a servant would feel when they decided to pierce their ear to the door post of their master’s house.
Well, since I was deciding to make a choice to serve the Lord out of love and not obligation and become his doulos servant there isn’t really a tangible way I can pierce my ear to the Heavenly gates…so…I just pierced my ear instead. From what I know about pain and piercings, I probably didn’t get the full extent of what one servant would have gone through, but I have a daily reminder (and a little healing pain) of the choice I made.
I made the choice from the beginning of team doulos to serve. Then I decided to pursue friendships because a doulos servant devotes oneself to another in disregard of one’s own interests. And then I decided to choose to serve my Lord through the freedom he is granting me from the lies I have believed for so long. And to top it all off I did all of this by piercing my ear to the “door post of their master’s house” or making a daily reminder to myself of the freedom Christ has given me.
The struggle with the lies is a daily battle, but Christ has offered me freedom from those and I walked into servant hood in the Courts of Jesus Christ out of bondage to the lies of this world.
I can only image what a servant of the olden days must have felt when they were rewarded with their freedom. I am only seeing glimpses of freedom here and there, but it is so good; and God gives that to me (us) so freely. For that servant to receive their freedom, the choose to give it all back to their master and continue to serve them, that is what I want my life to look like.
Not out of obligation to I love and serve my Lord, but out of the freedom He has so graciously given me do I then turn to love and serve him wholeheartedly out of my own choice and my own painful price.
Now that I have started to learn huge lessons in regards to Doulos what better time to walk into a new season with a little bit of a new team. 😉 We have transformed from Doulos to Team Freedom Bound 3:17 with the addition of a new team member!
