Be a Servant

At some level, we are all servants. Perhaps we are all here to be of service, to make some difference in the lives of others. Whom do you serve? God? Yourself? Family? Friends? Neighbors? Community? If you determined your wealth not by money and possessions, but by the cumulative service you have rendered to others over the years, how rich are you? Conversely, how poor?

This is not the way we usually think, however. We measure wealth in material terms, not spiritual. Through the millennia, most have believed it is better to be served than to serve. Most secretly envy and seek to emulate the rich and famous, the prestigious and popular, those who are the served, rather than the ever-lowly servants.

Yet when we consider the most important persons in our lives, those who most affected and affirmed us, they are the servants. They are not the persons we served, but the persons who served us. They are the ones who were there for us when we were in need, those who lovingly shaped and sharpened us.

So which kind of person do you want to be? Those valued or envied by others, those treasured in the hearts and memories of others for service given, or those quietly disdained and disliked by others for goods attained?

As for me, I choose to be a servant. I didn’t always feel this way; as a young man, I wanted to become rich and famous, and have others serve me. I thought being a mere servant demeaning. Then I turned fourteen and that very day became a busboy at a steakhouse in downtown Des Moines, managed by my mother. So it went with job after job; I seemed to always be serving others. Yet I still yearned to become one others serve.

Most fortunately for me, that turned out not to be my lot. It became apparent that I belonged among the many servants silently working in the world, who attempt to keep things together, keep things moving. In hindsight, I would not have it any other way. I thank God for years of service, though mostly unthanked for at the time. The joy was in the serving, not the praise of others.

The ancient adage that “It is better to give than to receive,” rings true for me. What it really means is that it is ultimately more rewarding to serve than to be served. It also rings true for me the three haunting questions a pastor breathed again and yet again, while in the midst of a potentially life-ending heart attack. Lying in an intensive care hospital bed, his three possibly final issues were these: “Who loves me? Whom have I loved? Have I served the Lord?”

Those questions are never very far from me. Nor is the succinct summary statement about service offered by the founder of the people called Methodists, John Wesley. These words are as profound as they are simple:
“Do all the good you can
by all the means you can,
in all the ways you can,
in all the places you can,
to all the people you can,
as long as ever you can.”

If you can somehow manage to so live your life, on a daily basis, your eventual wealth will be beyond measure. The wealth known only by, and given to, servants.