This came as no surprise to me, but living in community with 13 adults is hard.
However, the struggle I’ve been having lately is one that I never foresaw.
I’m only a semi-neat person at home. I’m hyper-organized, but usually pretty messy when it comes to spaces that are solely mine, like my room or car, and prefer shared areas to be neat because many people use them.
Now fast forward three months into the World Race, and you’ll find 13 World Racers living in a beautiful house in Swaziland. We’ve been extremely blessed to have a house to ourselves, but with that comes the responsibility to care for not only ourselves and each other but the house as well.
As you can imagine, when 13 people come home from playing with African children all day the floor gets really muddy and dirty. When 13 people come home hungry from a long day, they ransack the kitchen and rack up the dishes. When 13 people come home their first thought is, well, their own needs.
And while that’s normal, the World Race has tried to facilitate us buying into a culture that says “Even though I have needs, I am going to love and prefer and honor you, my brothers and sisters, by putting your needs before my own.”
Practically this could look like:
– Needing a shower really badly, but letting others go before you because you know they need one too.
– Making a trip to the store for team food even though you don’t want to because you know that others went last time and need to rest just as much as you do.
-Taking responsibility not only for your own dishes, but for dishes that were used by the whole team because no one is on dish duty but you love your team mates so you willingly do it.
I’ve tried really hard to buy into this mindset of “high honor and high preference.” And as a task-oriented person with the gift of service, I’ve found myself feeling like I’ve been pouring out and pouring out relentlessly and feeling like other people haven’t been stepping up.
And while I know these feelings are valid, I recognize that pride might definitely be a factor. And yes, I have problems stepping back. And I’ve been letting little things steal my joy. And I have issues with control.
These are a few of the many things God has been bringing out of me lately. The Holy Spirit has certainly been helping me recognize my sin and has confirmed that He has placed me in a season of learning to submit and step back and rest and wait.
Some people struggle with stepping up and getting things done and learning to be servants in the Kingdom. Some people struggle with stepping back and letting go to allow God to have His way.
And no one is wrong. And no one is more right. We’re just all in process.
But what I’m finding is that because we’re all in process, we all have to make changes to meet in the middle.
As part of the World Race, we are required to have a time of feedback daily, which is a time where issues are brought to the table in love with the purpose of bringing life into our team mates. Because my team has been paired with another team for this month, we have decided to have a joint feedback session with everyone once a week.
We’ve talked about all the things above several times now, because issues continue to come up. And with that we’ve thrown around two words a lot – grace and love.
“When people don’t meet your standards, make sure you show them grace.”
“Don’t serve if it’s not out of love.”
“We need to love each other more.”
“Make sure you give grace upon grace upon grace.”
And oh, how those things are true. As the body of Christ, showing grace and love in situations that may frustrate us is absolutely essential. But these words are also words that get abused and misused often just like the entities they describe.
So grace – it’s basically giving something we don’t deserve. So to show a team mate grace would be to give them something that they don’t deserve. Maybe tangibly it would look like washing someone’s dish that accidently got left on the table. Maybe it would be letting it go if someone left their dirty dishes in the sink over and over again.
But we must not forget that just like it did for us through the cross, grace comes at a high cost. As someone who has felt like they’ve had to give grace over and over again when it comes to the stewardship of the house we’re living in, I can tell you right now that it costs. It costs my sleep and rest. It costs the peace that I usually have, even though it shouldn’t. It has spent my patience, which is usually rather abundant.
Also grace is something easily abused. So while there is always grace, it is important to remember that grace can never be an excuse. In Romans, Paul says “Should we continue sinning that grace may abound? By no means!” In the same way, should we continue not meeting standards just because there’s grace toward it – NO. Should I continue leaving my dirty dishes in the sink habitually because someone will wash them – by no means.
And grace must go both ways when it comes to people. Grace must be toward the person who slacks and leaves their dishes, and it must be toward the person who tries to control the situation and sets the standard too high.
Grace to the low standard. Grace to the high standard. Grace upon grace.
And in the same way, we talk about how we must love each other better. And it’s true.
But we must also remember that love is not based on our emotions. Love is an action-based commitment to another person or people that seeks to place their needs above your own.
It’s not based on if I feel like going to the store today. Chances are I don’t want to go. But to serve out of love means that because I am committed to my team mates, I will go to the store because their need for food is more important to me than my need to rest. Their need to rest is more important than my need to get Internet. Their need to take a break from doing the shopping is more important than my desire to watch a movie.
In John 15:13, it says that there is no greater love than to lay down your life for a friend. That’s what Jesus did for us, His friends. And then His greatest commandment for us is to love Him and love other people. So His call for us is to daily lay down our lives, namely our own agendas and even our own needs, for the sake of others.
It sounds like that would suck. And honestly, sometimes it does.
But the good news is that God promises that love will never fail. Even when it seems like we are loving without being loved back by people, the truth is that we serve a God who never stops loving us. He always sees our needs and is faithful to meet them.
I’m learning that when we keep our focus on Him and His love toward us, in full knowledge that He sacrificed His son to meet our needs for salvation, grace, etc., suddenly we are able to love to a different capacity because we are not looking to others for fulfillment. We already have our fulfillment, and we eagerly want God to use us to meet the needs of others.
With all that said, God has shown me a lot about grace and love this month, and I guess I have dirty dishes to thank for that.
