When our service to others is actually selfish

Have you ever found yourself serving someone else or doing a nice deed for someone, and then realize that you actually did it for yourself? (You’ll know if afterwards you feel empty or even disappointed.) Or have you ever received a gift from someone, or had someone do something nice for you, and it seemed weird or out of place? When I analyze these situations, sometimes it’s because the person wanted to help me out of a desire to fill their own needs, not out of an overflow of love for me.

We do this. We serve and serve and get ourselves tired. Why are we tired? Because we’re not serving in love. We’re serving because we’re seeking our own approval, our own accomplishment, our own satisfaction at a job well done.

I hate to break it to you, I hate to break it to myself, but this is self-seeking.

Should I stop feeding the poor? No. Should I stop serving others? No. But at the same time, can I at least look at why I do the things I do?

Sometimes our acts of kindness or thinking of others is actually selfish. Ouch.

Is it better to not serve or think of others? No, I still think it’s better to serve, but be careful. If you get yourself all tired out for God (also known as Christian-burn-out), you’ll end up full of regret, possibly far away from God, and maybe even confused about why people don’t repay all your good deeds.

We see this in the church all the time.

Because we live in fear, not love. We try to follow the Word, do the right thing, serve others, etc, from a place of fear. If we actually loved, we’d serve with a different attitude. We’d be content, at rest, and not constantly searching for the next person to help and rescue and save. We’d be patiently waiting for instructions from God, AND since we’d be resting, we would be free to hear his direction and ready to go when it comes.

I don’t know how not-being-selfish turned into rest. Something which, by the way, God commands for us. It’s even in the 10 commandments. Weird. It’s right in there along with murder, stealing, coveting, adultery….how weird to also command rest. Maybe it’s important.

You would think the opposite of SELF-seeking would be OTHERS-seeking. But it’s not. The opposite of SELF-seeking is GOD-seeking, and there is an infinite amount of rest in that.

Jesus said the greatest commandment is to "love God will all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." (Luke 10:27) He could have just said love God with your heart, soul, mind and strength, but he repeated himself and added all those extra words because he was emphasizing the point. It was important! He said the second commandment is to "love your neighbor as yourself." So if our main focus and goal is to serve others, I think we’re actually missing a big piece. The only solution to self-seeking is to love God with all our strength, or in other words, be God-seeking, and THEN to love others as ourselves. It’s interesting that He doesn’t tell us to take our love for God and also love others with that same love. He says to love others as we would love ourselves. God is still priority here. So if I’m serving someone else, I really want to look at my heart and ask myself if I’m serving them because I want some kind of recognition, because it seems nice or right, or if I’m serving them because I love God so much!

It’s weird. I know. Go ahead and keep on serving, serving is good, but be aware of your heart. Is your love for God consuming all of your mind and soul and heart and strength? Because that should be priority, and it’s our only way to truly combat selfishness.

A Friend's Take on Pride

By Heather Slagsvol. Posted with permission. 

Week 5: Pride (and some boasting, too)

The theme of this week has been weighing on my heart since JJ introduced it, which is funny because I felt like pride was one of the last things I struggled with (hmm…maybe that should have been an instant heads up). I know that I don’t boast about talents or abilities…wait….I THOUGHT I didn’t boast about talents and abilities because I was looking at it from the wrong angle, but today I feel like God revealed something to me about myself. Let me try to walk you through the thought process I had today.

Something happened to me that occurs on a daily basis. I thought that someone had responded to me in a way that was harsher or less sensitive than I would have liked. Yes, this literally happens to me every day. Today was different though, because almost immediately instead of thinking, “Why are people always so mean to me?” I thought, “Why do I always take things the wrong way?” and I immediately thought about 15 Weeks to Love, and what JJ had introduced about pride. So, I got out my computer and looked up the definition of pride. I really thought I knew what it meant, but I wanted to see if there was anything in there that I had missed. The definition that first popped up said, “a dignified or becoming sense of what is due to oneself or one’s position and character.” Simple enough. But that word “becoming” kept sticking out to me. While I also know what it means, I decided to look that word up too to see if anything new stuck out. “Becoming: to give a pleasing effect.” There it is. “To give a pleasing effect”.  It immediately hit me, let me explain….

I am ALWAYS taking things the wrong way. ALWAYS. Too short of a response, an honest answer, something less than I had expected…something that doesn’t give me a “pleasing effect”…

Could it be pride that causes me to think I deserve a specific response from people? I think I actually believe that people constantly mistreat me or take advantage of me on purpose, that I am unappreciated or not respected enough. But in all honesty, if I really think about it, I have only been TRULY treated that way a few times in my life. I am really good at making myself the victim in any situation. I say a nasty thing about someone, and instantly, I blame them. “Well, they are always doing 'this or that' to me”. “Well, I let it bubble up for too long, they are just so MEAN!” I always try to be the innocent one. ALWAYS. I think I believe that I deserve a certain sort of treatment from people...(“a sense of what is DUE to one’s self”). If that’s not pride I don’t know what is.

Since pride is directly related to boasting I decided to go back to last week’s blog entry about it. Oh man. JJ wrote about “boasting in our weaknesses”. There it is. I think that I am “weak” and sweet, and kind, and nice, and blah blah blah, and while I really do try to practice those character traits, I think I have convinced myself that I am never the opposite of those things. It sounds so unbecoming when I say it out loud.

Here are some of my actual go-to statements:
“I always try so hard to be nice….”
“I’m not saying I want or need something in return from them, but….”
“I just feel like we do so much, but….”
“It just seems like we are so unappreciated…..”
(I say “we” because I often suck my poor husband into my crazy.)

All of these statements are my natural defenses, my immediate responses...and they reek of pride and false humility.

Who do I think I am? Jesus?

I am not perfect.
Sometimes I am mean.
I say things about other people that I shouldn’t.
I judge.
I blame others when I respond the wrong way.
I’m not always nice…
or kind…..

….Wow. It really feels good to say those things. I know who I aim to be. And I am not trying to beat myself down or condemn myself for the things I do wrong, because I don’t think that’s right either. But I finally feel like this MAJOR part of my life is starting to make sense. I can only be all the things I want to be through Jesus anyway. I need to step back and take responsibility for my own actions and stop blaming others. I also need to stop thinking that I deserve a specific sort of treatment from people…

I do struggle with pride.

By Heather Slagsvol. Posted with permission.

How can God be called ‘Jealous’?

The bible definitely talks about envy and jealousy in the way we understand it. Psalms and Proverbs are constantly telling us to not envy the wicked and their riches. Ecclesiastes talks about our envy of others causing us to strive in achievement. There is no mystery about what this word means when it was translated from Greek to English. So how can the bible say “Love is not jealous”, and yet say that God’s own name is ‘Jealous’ (Exodus 34:14)? Not to mention the hundreds of verses where it says ‘God is jealous’. The bible even mentions a few times when God provokes jealousy in His people because He wants their hearts to turn back to Him. Even Paul writes to the Christians that he wishes he could make the Israelites jealous so that they would want Jesus. Why would God want us to be jealous, but then say, “love is not jealous”. Isn’t God Himself Love?

Confusing. But I think there’s so much here we can learn. I think it would help if we looked at it the way we look at…sex. (Sorry, PG-13, but hear me out.) There is healthy sex and there is unhealthy sex. Healthy sex brings life and healing and joy. Unhealthy sex brings pain and longing and damage. There seems to be a “healthy jealousy” in the bible. When God is jealous, His desire is for us (mostly after we’ve turned away from Him.) He is angry with His bride, Israel, because she’s broken her covenant with Him and whored around to whoever would sleep with her. His jealousy is a healthy jealousy that invokes Him to fight for His bride. What woman doesn’t want to be chased by the man they love?

I recently watched How to Train Your Dragon 2 with my kids and was blown away by a scene where the main character (Hiccup) finds his long lost mother (thought to be killed by a dragon 20 years ago) reuniting with his father, the ruler of the Vikings. He’s a big, scary, stubborn kind of guy. When he sees his wife for the first time in a long time, he is serious, yet full of emotion, and he is…gentle. He loves her, and welcomes her back to be his wife again even though she wandered off without looking back.

I love this scene because it reminds me of God’s heart for us. It doesn’t matter what we do. He always desires for us to come back to Him. He just keeps trying, keeps waiting, in patience (week one), and kindness (week two), for us to love Him back. He is jealous for us, because we are His bride, and He’s supposed to be jealous for His bride, just like we are supposed to be jealous for Him.  This is healthy jealousy.

So what is unhealthy jealousy? 1 Corinthians is saying that love is not jealous for the wrong things. Love isn’t jealous for a nice house, a good job, a better personality, a smaller nose, quiet children, or a helpful husband. Love is jealous only for the Lover of our souls! Our jealousy can not be aimed at anything but His heart and loving Him. That is what Paul meant when he wrote “Love is not jealous”. He means love doesn’t look around and see all the things it doesn’t have.  Love is being so committed and connected to God’s heart, that we just want more of Him, and all the other stuff we want fades away into the distance, because Love realizes nothing comes close to the Lover's embrace.

Love Is Serving

I’m trying to think of how I can serve more, or how I can be more of a servant. I’m not coming up with much that will actually work. Oh, I have all kinds of ideas on how to improve and serve more. But do you know what I don’t have? Time. Volunteer at a soup kitchen? That’s a great way to serve. But I work all day and have my kids alone all weekend. Cook someone a meal? Yeah, that would be great if I wasn’t going on vacation next week. Clean a new mom’s house? Sure, sure, but that will take too long so I’ll just hire someone else to do it.

It’s not that I don’t know HOW to serve, I just don’t know how to FIND THE TIME to serve. Being kind is super hard.

Don’t think too poorly of me. Mostly, I don’t have time to serve because I’m already serving. I’m constantly serving my kids and my husband. I try to watch my friend’s kids when they need help. I’m always having people over for dinner to serve them. I try to clean up when I’m at people’s houses (I learned this from a good friend who always cleans up at my house when she’s over and wow is it a blessing!) I visit friends who need a visitor. I write to people who may need an encouraging word. I pray. I feel like I do try to serve others. But there are so many people who serve a lot more than I do! I know I’m not doing as well as I could.

I think the "serving" that God wants from us in LOVE here is more precise. I think it’s listening, serving the person in need. I can’t think of any story to show “kindness” and “serving” better than The Good Samaritan.  We know the story… a guy gets robbed and beat up and left on the side of the road to die. A bunch of good religious people see him and leave him there. But then this Samaritan (the guy's enemy) helps him, nurses him back to health and makes sure he’s okay.  That is the kindness found in 1 Corinthians 13:4. 

Am I like the Good Samaritan?

No, I’m just not. I generally leave others to fend for themselves. In fact, in emergency situations, I freeze. I am 90% sure that if one of my kids was about to fall off a cliff, I would instantly freeze instead of diving to save him. I know that sounds awful, but it’s probably true. When I see a bad situation unfolding, I go blank. Sometimes I pass out. (Hopefully if something like this ever happened, my husband would be around, because he is the total opposite! He instinctively runs TOWARD danger and saves everyone. HERO!)

But since Christ is in me, and I’m being made new with the renewing of my mind (Rom. 12:2), then I should be changing. I should be more of a servant. I should see when people need help, and be able to help them.  That’s what Christ did. So if I’m taking on the nature of my Father and His Son a little more every day, then surely I can lend a helping hand to someone in need (in a timely fashion.)

It’s not just about danger and near-death experiences. There’s another point to be made from The Good Samaritan. These guys were enemies. They were from opposite sides of the track so to speak. Are there people in my life who need my help that I don’t want to help? Yeah *sigh*. Kindness in LOVE would help them.

Wouldn’t it be great, if we loved our enemies like Jesus said we should? “Serviceable kindness” would be a great place to start.

A New Meaning for “Kind”

Being “kind” is confusing. I know we’re all wondering if it’s more than just being nice or polite. So what is kindness and how do we practice it?

The Greek word used in 1 Corinthians 13:4 is pretty interesting and not even close to the word “nice”.  The actual definition for the word here is: “I am kind (full of service to others), gentle.”

Weird. I am….full of service to others? Another site defines it like this: "useful, profitable, well-fit for what is really needed; kindness that is also serviceable.”  They are getting this because of the Word Origin (meaning the word here is a variant of the original word: χρηστός or chréstos) which means “serviceable, good”.

In other words love isn’t just kind as we understand the word kind. Love is useful or full of service.

So if I love, I am useful to those I love. If I love, I am of service to those I love. Or I could say I am a servant to those I love. That makes sense doesn’t it?  You know who was THE perfect example of  “servant”? I’m sure you can figure that out.

The kindness here is an action. Oh man! I was hoping it was simpler than that. I was hoping I could just be nicer for a week. It looks like I have to actually be aware of God speaking to me, and listen to Him when He tells me to DO something for someone.

Have you ever heard of the Five Love Languages? It’s a book and idea that we express and receive love in 5 different ways. One of those ways is “acts of service”. You may feel really loved when someone serves you, or you may show love by serving.

I bring this up because it ties some of this together for me. God is saying here that LOVE is 'usefully kind’. So if we walk in love, we will be naturally useful, naturally serving others. And guess what? One in 5 people (not a precise calculation) may actually see these acts of service as LOVE! They may feel loved because of your kindness, your service.

That’s pretty cool.

I think to really understand Week Two we need to change “Love is Kind” to “Love is Serving”. 

So how does God want me to serve today?