“Hi, my name is Lauren, I’ll be your server today……”
I don’t know how many times I say that in a given week.
You see, I work in a restaurant.
I’m a server….. AND THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT 😉
And I say that because society today somehow defines success by your office views, climbing the corporate ladder making a six-figure salary.
I walk into my restaurant each day and my job is to serve others. I naturally have a servants heart but is this something I want to do for the rest of my life, no probably not… but I’ll be honest when I say I never dread going into work because I know that there is a purpose for this season, and now I can see this was all preparation. I’ve been serving for two years at the same restaurant. Don’t get me wrong, there are frustrating days, it’s a high volume restaurant and there are physically demanding and exhausting days, there are definitely days where at the end of a shift I am more than happy to clock out and call it a day.
Like I said I get to spend my days serving others…. Let me be clear, I AM NOT a servant, and there are some guests I would love to point that tid bit out to (just keeping it real and honest)….
We all have a purpose to fulfill when we wake up each day. So I ask the question, how is this not just as important as the CEO, the stockbroker, the entreprenuer, the stay-at-home mom serving her family….. the list goes on and on I tell you.
We usually have 4-table sections. My little corner of the restaurant is my focus, that is my office. People are coming in hungry and want to get fed and I’m there to make sure they have the best experience they can. I’m there to serve them and give them what they need. There’s a table that needs ranch, there’s a table that needs to give me their order, the other table needs ice tea refills, it’s multitasking at it’s finest and I’m there to fulfill the need.
When I started thinking of the parallels of my day-to-day-job and what I’m about to set out to do for the next year on the mission field, it’s not that much different, like at all. People are starving, people are hungry, for a multitude of things. Maybe it’s the person in Malaysia who has never gotten a hug, maybe it’s the kid in Africa with no food and doesn’t have clean water. Maybe it’s the young woman in Thailand who is hopeless and stuck in sex trafficking and sees no way out and her circumstances have told her she’s not worth anything than her body because she’s never been told any different, or maybe it’s the person in the Philippines who has never heard of Jesus and the restorative hope and love he has to offer. Different country, different story…….. But the one thing these people have in common, they are hungry, they are thirsty….
John 4:14
“But whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
AND GUESS WHAT?????
I GET TO SERVE THEM.
But in a completely new and exciting way. We all need physical food to survive and live or we will starve. But above all, we need spiritual food. I get to go into these countries and offer them something so much better than anything found on a menu in a restaurant. I get to bring them the good news of Jesus, that there’s a love waiting for them that’s so much greater than anything they could ever imagine. I get to let them know that even in the most remote of Villages they are not forgotten, that we are there to serve them and meet their needs in any possible way we are fit to do so.
So, yes, I’m a server and I say that with so much pride!
