“We just want to work” I heard an adult leader exclaim this week. I was sitting amidst the crowded smells of middle school youth and their leaders in almost nowhere Oklahoma. I’m working leading missions in the United States again this summer with Youthworks. Listening to an adult leader tell me again and again, all she wants to do is work, and feel accomplished in her work.
She was working in 100-degree weather on a reservation. Her youth were sweating, giggling and throwing something in the air to one another. She was in the community assigned to this project and was feeling complete frustration. She was here to do missions and to serve and she was instead standing around talking.
But what does service really look like? Serving Christ isn’t always perfect, is most definitely isn’t always easy, and the best part is it’s completely unexpected sometimes.
I’ve seen service look like
A conversation in a nursing home.
A joke during a tough situation.
Someone scraping paint with their bare hands.
Playing tag with a child.
Sitting with a child after they’ve been beaten at home.
Giving hugs.
Laughing at jokes and ridiculous stories for hours.
Letting children play and braid your hair.
Washing one another’s feet. (Figuratively and literally)
The reality is that Christ set a prime example for us as Christians to do as he has done to serve the least of these. Sometimes the best gift of service is a listening ear. Sometimes its a shoulder to cry on, or hands to cry with. Sometimes it’s building a school brick by brick. Other times its serving a meal to a stranger.
The great thing about Christ is the unexpected moments we are given to serve. We don’t need to travel to far places, we don’t need to provide money. We need to provide an ear, a smile, a little muscle too. Whether it’s in our own community or at home we are given the chance to serve one another in love.
Sometimes the work of Christ doesn’t mean working back to back without a break. It means serving someone in love, as fast or as slow as they need us to be.
I’m so very ready to serve Christ in a million and two ways in the next year, both at home and across the World.
For several hours this girl was afraid to speak to me. It was only when I sat down and gave her my hair to braid that she was able to open up and speak to me.
