Who Do You Serve?

There are three unique answers to this question, as I see it:  One answer is to serve oneself.  One answer is to serve the world. One answer is to serve the Lord.  There are many more, but my focus will be on these.

To serve oneself is the answer that most of us must give to the question.  So few of us know what our mission in life is, or what it means to be in service to another.  We do not live as legitimate slaves, nor as prisoners, nor as consciously selfish as I might imply with this answer.

Or do we?

The second answer pulls from the first, and lays bare some fairly deep truths.  Though we might deny to ourselves and to others that we live as slaves, we remain in bondage to dependence on the world.  Many of us, at some point (and maybe still), serve in our workplaces as slaves to the whims of someone in authority, someone higher up.  We work long hours and remain in contact with our work at all times, sacrificing the autonomy of the slave to righteousness for the subjugation of the slave to transience.  Or we look at earning money as the sole thing of value in the lives we live, ignoring opportunities to see beauty in service or in extending a hand to others.  To serve the world seems one’s lot in life unless the desire to live differently is consciously enacted.  And it’s a hard thing to do.

Finally, to serve Christ.  This is the only thing of value in this life, as it offers us fulfillment in serving others, because in doing so we are giving glory to God.  It offers us, though we may not immediately recognize it, the delights and the desires of our hearts when we can hear them.  We may not want to see the smiles on the faces of those whom the world considers ugly, or forgotten, or of little consequence when they hear that there is freedom beyond this life.  We may not want to have our hearts moved by the honest thanks of those who have been unloved. But in serving Christ, we’re given these things to cherish.  And that is what we must ask ourselves when we ask who do you serve.  If you serve yourself, you will live selfishly, often coldly and without compassion.  If you serve the world, you will sacrifice the chance to see miraculous things in the lives of those you live and work and eat with.  And you will make choices that do not honour your abilities and gifts as a Christian.  But if you serve the Lord…He is good.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Where Are You Going?

Apparently, nowhere with this blog.  But in all seriousness, to return to the five questions, where are you going asks perhaps the most (forgive the pun) directed question.  Where are you going first asks “from where have you come?”  You must have a point of departure to arrive at a point of destination.  So from where have you come invites reflection.  Look back, see your journey.  See what path you have traveled, what long road you have walked and what obstacles you’ve encountered.  Look back and see what flukes of fate (as if it can be called such a trite thing) and what journey mercies have supported you.  Take strength from what you see, for you have been brought through much, I’m sure.

To turn to “where are you going?” is to look forward, to see what path you feel you need to follow.  Matthew Gideon’s answer was “wherever it takes me.”  A wise answer,  yes, but a cop-out at the same time.  “Where are you going” is to ask yourself honestly what shape your life seems to be taking, and what plan you think you are following.  Make no mistake.  All journeys, all “where are you goings” must have a map, a guideline to follow.  Take, for example and because I’ve just rewatched them, Jack Sparrow’s compass from the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies.  A tool, a device that doesn’t point to where one thinks it should, but to where you want it to direct you.  What you want most.  And thus we look back at the question before…what do you want.  For what you want is one of the primary determinants of where are you going.

In application, my answer to what do you want is Christ.  More of Him and as clear a sense of who He is as I can get.  My answer to where are you going…to Him.  With all questions, all burdens, and all the warts and disfigurements that make me who I am.  And in finding the answer “To Him”, I can ask the questions that follow with more honesty…

Who do you serve?

And who do you trust?

Blessings;

Christ-bearer