Holy Week: Enabled to Serve

"I guarantee you, Tass is willing to help!  He'd even even clean the floor tiles with a toothbrush, if you needed him to!"

Tass Saada nodded his agreement; he genuinely wanted to serve. After converting to Christianity, Tass had gone from being a huge business owner and city-dweller to a low-paid member of a church staff in an unknown small town in the Midwest. It had a difficult transition, but he prayed for faith and a willingness to follow God's plan for him. Little did he know how low he would have to bend.

The next morning, Tass showed up to work.... and was handed a toothbrush to clean the floor tiles. His anger nearly erupted at the humiliating task; of course he wasn't really willing to stoop so low! Surely there were more distinguished ways to further the Kingdom of heaven.

I don't think Tass was the first one to feel this way. So often, I see the same mindset enter my own life; I'm willing to serve... if it furthers my self-image, and if the work isn't too degrading or difficult. I convince myself that I would be willing to clean floor tiles with a toothbrush, if that was what God wanted from me. But, in my heart, I have implicitly set a standard for how low I will bend, and I refuse to go further.

Many of us genuinely want to serve God, and the people around us. But have we set a limit to how far we will bend?  Who am I, to say God can use me, but then define the terms and conditions of how He will use me?

It is so humbling to look at the life of Jesus. When He came into the world, He took the lowest place; a helpless, dependent, tiny infant born in a cave with animals. He was the King of the universe, the Prince of Peace, the one seated at the right hand of the Father, to whom was given all power and glory and dominion over all the earth..... and yet He came down and washed our feet.

How could we refuse to do the same?

Later that week, Tass would reflect on the task. As he washed floors in the kitchen, he remembered that boys would come in and talk to him. They were intrigued by his stories of war, and the life he lived before he immigrated to the United States. One boy was touched so deeply that he took an interest in the church Tass served; later, he was saved. God had a glorious plan for that seemingly degrading task; He will work through a willing servant in ways that we may never see, but that are beyond imagination.

5 "In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

6 Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature[b] of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!"

-Philippians 2:5-8

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Worship Song: 

"Killing Me with Mercy",
by Misty Edwards