It rained for a week. A week. And my kids are crazy and getting louder and more irritated every day. There is a lot of crying and screaming and general bad behaviour. It makes it hard for me to be patient and kind and gracious. I yell with them and at them, I get worked up and annoyed. I just want to be left alone for a while! I want to go away and be able to sleep in, eat what I want when I want, just sit and relax without having people climb all over me. It doesn’t seem like a lot to ask for, but with a house full of small children, a day like that feels like nothing short of a miracle.
I am tempted, on a daily basis, to cast aside the responsibilities of serving my family for some self-indulgent time. And there are a lot of people that would say that’s OK. And I have even said that before. But the question I need to ask myself, before I sit down with a good book, is “am I neglecting my service by taking this time for my own pleasure?” Sometimes the answer is no, sometimes my human body needs the rest and my kids are not in any danger for that decision. But there are other times when that book needs to stay and collect a little more dust. There are times when I put my desires ahead of my duty. It’s temptation that I fall into often.
I am a mom and wife, pretty much exclusively. I don’t work outside the home or have any real demands on my time outside of my children. I love them, a lot. But its a pretty thankless job, every mom knows that. There are so many times in a day where all we moms want is someone who we serve to tell us that we are doing a good job. A child to rise and call us “blessed.” It just isn’t how it goes. It is a whole lot of serving, and waiting for someone in our home to acknowledge our work. Which might never happen. So how do I reconcile this in my heart? Because there is a part of my heart that wants to become bitter and angry at this perceived injustice. My heart isn’t all full of happy, glow-y bits, some of my heart bits are angry and dark and conniving. It is a battle of Spirit vs human will. I will not lie, some days the human will wins.
I was so encouraged this week, as I faced a daily barrage of assorted kid noises, to read Luke 17:7-10. It doesn’t initially seem like an encouraging passage, but bear with me:
Suppose one of you had a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? Would he rather not say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty’
I know, I know how that sounds when you read it, kind of like a “pull up your socks and do your job” kind of message. Especially because we read it through the somewhat twisted human-ness that we all suffer from. It really is like an illness, this human sin thing. So my service to my family is no less than what I am charged with as a servant of God. It is my duty and not only should I work to complete all tasks to my Master’s satisfaction, I should do so being ever mindful of the grace that enabled me to serve at all. I should complete my tasks with the understanding that it is the least I can do. It is not an easy attitude to adopt (especially when it rains for a week). But part of serving is recognizing how the tasks set before me matter to the “household” of my Master. I have been given charge of precious gifts, I have been entrusted in one of the greatest ways. The work I do daily matters greatly for the kingdom. The service I perform all the agonizing minutes of my worst days is service to grow the family of God. Is there anything greater I could have been tasked with? Do I fail to see how much the Father has entrusted to my care? I am far from worthy of this kind of task, far from capable on my own of completing the job set before me. But this is where the verses above only work if we remember who spoke them and what they mean. I am not entitled to anything, at all. I am merely a sinner of sinners who chose the path of grace. I am serving the God who saw fit to provide a bridge of blood by which I cross an otherwise impassable chasm to kneel, clean and robed in spotless white, before the One who has every right to condemn me to the worst possible eternal existence. Do you see how serious this is? Yet, it was the grace of this God who allowed me to live in his light and learn from his ways. It is love that enables me to serve. And I serve the best Master, who wants good things for me and puts me in a place of worth, even as undeserving as I am. And this place of worth allows me to draw on His great power and goodness and patience and peace and love in all my days of service. I don’t serve a human master who withholds good things from me. I serve a perfect God who wants only good things for me. So I can look at this passage and see only the constant tasks, or I can look and be reminded of the grace that allows me to serve at all, and to remember the darkest of places from which I was rescued. I can change my attitude towards the great gift entrusted to me by remembering first the great gift given to me. These words, spoken by Jesus, don’t demand that I always be happy or content, instead they require me to remember my gifted place before I grumble, to remember that service is the greatest form of humility. I can choose what my heart feels. Is my heart feeling the anger at missing out on the worldly accolades? Or is my heart being trained to turn to the Father and seek first His “well done” as the better goal? It makes it easier to remember the eternity of goodness to come, especially when life doesn’t allow the time to satisfy my human desires. I serve for the kingdom of the King.
faith from the stove 