Last Monday, Pastor Ben reminded us that, “God calls all of us to serve and many of us to lead in some capacity or another. Let us commit ourselves to the example of Christ and strive, by the Spirit’s help, to be the servant leaders God has enabled us to be.” But have you ever found yourself saying things like: “This is a waste of my time. I have better things to do,” or “I hate doing this. I wish someone else would do it for me”?
Efficiency and enjoyment often complicate serving well in our homes. This makes sense if these are your goals for how and when you serve your family. But, of course, the goal of any ministry, especially in our homes, isn’t necessarily efficiency or even to “like” it. The goal is love. True, we could hire someone to do most or all the things we don’t feel like we have time for or, quite frankly, that annoy us. But just getting things done isn’t the point. We want all whom we serve to know that we care for them, that we understand their needs in a deep and profound way, and that we are committed to them, even to the point of sacrificing anything for them.
In this sense then, no task is too small. Even giving someone a cup of water can convey love. Jesus himself said as much.
Matthew 10:42, “And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward.”
But if we are honest with ourselves, some things do seem too small. They are beneath us. Maybe we’re used to having things done for us. Perhaps we have an exaggerated sense of our importance. Serving others can be excruciatingly painful. It can seem like we are being unnecessarily humiliated. When we serve with a mindset of “this task is beneath me,” we communicate to those we are serving: “I am better than you.”
Serving others may be humiliating, but such humiliation is not unnecessary. In fact, humility is a prerequisite Christian virtue. We cannot follow Christ without washing each other’s feet the way he did.
Humbling ourselves with small and seemingly unimportant tasks in service to others doesn’t mean we ourselves are small and unimportant. On the contrary, in Christ’s economy, it means we are great. And we are never more faithful in following Jesus than when we serve others.
No task is too big or too small when it comes to the work of God. May we become Christians who are disciplined and devoted enough to do the unexciting and uninteresting menial tasks for the Lord. Our labor will be rewarded! Unquestionably, God’s kingdom is advanced by people of little talent doing little jobs for a big God.