Willing to make a difference?

It's easy to make a buck. It's a lot tougher to make a difference. (Tom Brokaw)

My brothers and sisters, God chose you to be free. But don’t use your freedom as an excuse to do what pleases your sinful selves. Instead, serve each other with love. (Galatians 5:13)

We can make a difference in BIG ways when we let God guide our steps, choose our interactions, and prepare us in advance of each day. What we choose to do with our lives will determine the outcome. Living for Jesus is more than living for oneself. When we choose to live for Jesus, we choose to live for all those he presents in our path!

We might find it hard to please everyone, but God isn't asking us to be 'people-pleasers'. He is asking us to learn the acts of service that will touch those around us. In essence, he is telling us to turn outward and stop always looking inward. It is easy to ask how something will affect us - it is quite different to ask how something has or is affecting someone else.

What is the hardest part of 'service'? Isn't it the willingness to see life through the eyes of another and then begin to find ways to make their circumstances just a bit better? It doesn't mean we give money, although we may be called up on to serve in that manner. It may mean we bring someone groceries, give them a lift to work while their car is at the shop, or even help them clean up their yard after a particularly bad storm. Service comes in various forms - we just need to be open to God's leading to serve one another.

God's plan is quite simple - unconditional, service-hearted, self-sacrificing love. This is what brings hurting communities together, helps families in need get a fresh start, and opens doors to deep and lasting relationships. It is what binds a community together, breaking down all kinds of barriers that would keep us apart. Service might just begin in your own home - sacrificially giving of oneself to another. It then leads us outward to our community. Our world isn't changed until we are each willing to step up and make a difference! Just sayin!

Start small and see the bigness of God

Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds. 

(George Eliot)

It was Eliot who reminded us, "Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together." Small things add up, don't they? We may not see the effect of one small action today, but in the far off 'tomorrows' that one action may mushroom into a far greater outcome than we ever thought possible.

So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit. Right now, therefore, every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all, starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith. (Galatians 6:9-10)

We can grow weary in doing good at times. We plug along, taking all the right steps, doing all the right things, being as 'right' as we are able to be each and every day. Fatigue in 'doing' is natural - we get tired when we are active. Yet, contrary to what we might imagine, it is that action that actually keeps our bodies healthy. Might it just be that 'good actions' in a spiritual sense are also making us 'healthier' spiritually?

Work for the benefit of all - not just the benefit of one. This is a hard concept for some, as all they can think about is how the actions will benefit themselves. They find it hard to see beyond their own needs and wants. Unfortunately, if that is the case, they will often grow wearier and weaker. Why? God intends for us to look beyond our own needs, seeing the needs of others, taking action to meet those needs with whatever means we have at our disposal. 

It may be an extension of our time or talent. It matters not that you don't have money - give your time, energies, and abilities to another and God will bless what you have given. Do you know what I have discovered? When I give my time, energies, and abilities to another, God actually gives me greater energy than I expended. Sure, I get tired in 'doing right', but it is in doing that we are built up for the next thing we are called to do. So 'don't grow weary in well-doing' - for God's blessing awaits you at the end of that doing. Just sayin!

Not convenient, but oh so necessary

Strength if for service, not status....

We can have a desire to help another person, but then we realize we just don't know what to do in order to reduce the burden they are under - the specific need escapes us, we just know they have a need of some form. We are being touched in our spirit to the point of action on behalf of another and that is good. We are "identifying" with the other person in some fashion - somehow we feel like we are connected to their feelings, emotional struggles, and the challenge they are enduring - but are we really? Rarely, do we REALLY connect in quite the same manner as the one under the burden. In fact, unless we have walked the exact same path in THEIR shoes, not our own, we really don't know what it is they are enduring.

Those of us who are strong and able in the faith need to step in and lend a hand to those who falter, and not just do what is most convenient for us. Strength is for service, not status. Each one of us needs to look after the good of the people around us, asking ourselves, "How can I help?" (Romans 15:1-2)

The real purpose of what some may call "empathy" is the ability to step in with the intention of lending a hand to one who is faltering under a burden. Before long, it becomes pretty doggone apparent that we cannot deliver from the burden, but we might just be able to lighten the load a little! Learning how to be truly sensitive to the needs of another is something which does not come naturally to us - it is a God-cultivated thing within us. God reminds us that strength is for service. When we are standing strong, someone else may not be standing as strong, and it perhaps just barely holding on. Our calling is to serve - giving of our strength into their time of weakness in order to lift them when they have no capacity of lifting themselves. The process of "lifting" may be taking on a task for them that would only adds to their burden, us listening to them quietly so they can sort through their thoughts and prioritize their actions, or you and I just being there when no one else is.

Each on of us NEEDS to look after the good of the people around us. The responsibility we take toward those God places in our path is what we sometimes forget when we get too caught up in our own little world. We need to live intentionally - taking action where action is needed, remaining still when stillness is the best option. We are called to look out for the other guy - not ourselves. When we are looking out for the other guy - God takes care of us! Christ did not "make it easy on himself" by avoiding the troubles of others. Time after time, we observe him walking smack-dab into the middle of their 'troubles' and then helping them out of those very troubles. Some were troubles others created in their lives, others were those they had created themselves, while still others were those they had absolutely no part in creating. I have to ask - how many times do we simply look the other way when we see another's troubles just because we are wanting to make it easy on ourselves? If we were to be honest, I suspect we could all recount a time or two just in the past month!

The "investment" in serving another is sometimes more costly than we are willing to engage in at this particular moment - it won't be convenient and it often won't be easy. I think Jesus had to rearrange his priorities a good many times in order to be available to the needs of others. If we take to heart his example, then we will begin to ask, "How may I help?" It may not be "convenient", or "publicly rewarding", but if we are willing to share from our "strength" in the times of another's weakness, we are learning to serve as God intends! Just sayin!