Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, like servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. Luke 12:35-37
Serving others is a core value for Christians. It’s what Jesus does for us. It’s what we do for others. It’s part of our Christian DNA and a key part of our identity.
There will come times when we have to let that focus on serving others go. It may be because of exhaustion, over-commitment, ill health or aging. Then we are invited to go with the flow, and work on our own health or well-being. We may have to consciously set limits or boundaries and keep to them. When we are ill, we give ourselves permission to rest. As we get older, we allow other people to serve us.
We are justified by faith in Christ, not by our works of serving or being useful. While we accept that in our heads, we won’t do that easily in practice. What we believe and accept with our brains, won’t be the case in actual experience. If we have been brought up in a Christian family and grew up in the times when the worst failing of a parent was to raise a child with a ‘big head’, then we have had it drummed into us to not ‘big note’ ourselves, and to grow up to be competent, useful people who look after themselves no matter what. In that case it will feel so uncomfortable to feel like we are not contributing, and that we need to rely on others for help.
May the Holy Spirit keep guiding us all into learning how to go with the flow of our lives. May we know in our hearts, that we are not justified by all that we do. May we discover in our vulnerabilities that we are still loved and useful.
