Serve Others
At Target, I watched a mother become very exasperated with her five-year-old son. The boy kept whining and complaining until his mother lost patience with him. She seized him by the shoulders, shook him, and snarled, "Look, I brought you here! Now you have a good time! Enjoy it!”
The world tries so hard to be happy. But most of the things it offers drugs, alcohol, sexual adventures, expensive entertainment, financial reward don't work for long. Self-indulgence always produces emptiness, dissatisfaction, restlessness, and what the Bible calls "a continual lust for more" (Ephesians 4:19).
Dr. Karl Menninger was once asked in an open forum what a person should do for depression. The noted author and counselor offered an answer that surprised his audience.
"If I felt a sense of futility overwhelming me," he said, "I'd go out of my house, lock the door, go across the tracks, and find someone in need and do whatever I could to assist that person."
In other words, sound mental health depends on ministering to others. We are happiest when our lives have a purpose. We find that sense of purpose by serving others in the name of Christ.
When I was a High School boy years ago, I was lounging around in the living room, listening to rock and roll, when my dad came in from shoveling snow.
"He looked at me quizzically and said, 'In twenty-four hours, you won't even remember what you're listening to now. How about doing something for the next twenty minutes that you will remember for the next twenty years? I promise that you will enjoy it every time you think of it.'
"'What is it?' I asked. 'Well, Son, there are several inches of snow on the old lady next door walk. 'Why don't you see if you can shovel it off and get back home without her knowing?'
"I did the walk in about fifteen minutes. She never knew who did the job, and Dad was right. It has been a lot more than twenty years, and I have enjoyed the memory every time I have thought about it."
There is a blessedness that comes from serving others that you don't get from indulging yourself. The secret of happiness is to forget self and pursue service.
That sounds simple, but it's not easy to do. It means you have to go against your own lazy, egotistical, carnal nature. It means you go counter to the proud and indulgent world around you. It means you daily follow the one who humbled himself and washed the feet of his disciples.
I. If there was one thing you could do this coming year to make you happy, what would it be? Why?
2. Why did Jesus choose to wash his disciples' feet instead of doing some other task? What lesson does this teach us about service?
3· Jesus set an example to follow. What are some ways you can serve others this week?
Pastor Paul Leavens