When we serve, we serve people

One of the duties that the Lord tasks us with is to serve our fellow man. Like any duty He gives us, we quickly find that it is solely designed to improve us and make us more like Him.  We should understand that duty and do our best to fulfill it.  

One thing that I've noted about service is that when the Savior asks us to serve our fellow man, he's not telling us to come up with a theoretically perfect service project.  Often, He isn't going to give us perfect conditions, perfect weather, perfect timing, or serendipitous circumstances.  Sometimes His loving-kindnesses make these things possible, and greatly reduce our burdens, but in the end our duties are still required of us, not as an academic exercise but in our practical reality.  

We need to have charity, not in a vacuum or in a snow globe but in the lone and dreary world in which we now live.  We need to forgive, not as an mental exercise but here and now, even if we’ve been hurt and are still hurting.  We need to give other people our love and our time, even if it’s inconvenient and we think we have better things to do.

In the end, we're not serving God except when we serve our fellow man.  And when we serve our fellow man, we're bound to bump up against delays, imperfections, character flaws, and sins.  We're going to get impatient, bored, confused, frustrated, and even angry.

The end result, however, is worth it.  We live in the world as it is, so we're going to bump into the delays and imperfections anyway.  True service can truly mitigate the frustrations of mortality, blessing both them serving and them being served by shining a light into the divine potential in each of us.  By highlighting what is good and great in each of us, service turns us toward God and makes us better than if we were turned around gnawing on our little morsels.  It gives us a feast of godliness and holiness to consume, and makes us part of something greater than ourselves.

So in the end, when we devote our lives to serving God and our fellow man, we are not simply turned into ourselves, with our own base lusts and our own petty hurts; instead, we are sons and daughters of the Most High, animated with the greatest principles and blessed with the highest ordinances an almighty God has to offer.  Let us serve!

Life Rafts

Imagine yourself in a rubber inflatable life raft.  Tragedy has struck, and you are among a small group of survivors in a handful of these precarious craft bobbing in the middle of a vast ocean.  Resources are limited.

Now imagine that a huge luxury cruise liner pulls up beside you.  The Captain announces over the bullhorn that He is offering you free passage to a paradise destination, and all you must do is climb the ladder they are lowering to you.

However, some of the other survivors don't seem to understand the choice before them: they are consumed with making what they believe are life-and-death choices, such as which life rafts have fewer holes in them, which holes should be patched using the limited repair kits, and how to make extra fishing line.  When asked about the cruise liner, several people stated they couldn't understand what the Captain had said over the bullhorn.  One person stated that it was unreasonable to ask a survivor to climb such a distance.  Another said that since only one person could ascend up the ladder at a time, that the system was prejudiced and unjust.

Another survivor mocked the ship, saying that he couldn't see for certain that the people so far up were any better off.  Another cursed the liner for blocking the sun and making such a huge wake; this, he said, made it harder for the survivors on the water's surface to make their own decisions.

You decide to climb the ladder to the ship's deck above.  It's a tiring journey, and at first, it appears dangerous.  As you climb, however, you realize that the ladder is also being pulled up.  The people above are helping you climb.

It's still fatiguing, though, both physically and emotionally.  As you pass many portholes on your way up, you see beautiful people enjoying sumptuous meals and several types of engaging entertainment.  You wonder how you will fit in and whether you even want to associate with them,  You are, at once, jealous of their comfort, and angry that some of them don't see you.  Some do see you and shout encouragement.  This keeps up your motivation, and you start to approach the top.

This is the most difficult part of the climb.  The ladder doesn't appear to be moving anymore, you have blisters on your hands and your bare feet are cut up.  It would be easy to slip back down to the world you know rather than go on...so you have to make a choice.  Do you give up the life raft entirely?  Once you go over that railing, there's no turning back.  What do you do?

When we decide to follow Jesus Christ, we embark on a road that is both hard and easy.  As the Lord said, "For my yoke is easy, and my burden in light."  He tells us strait off the bat that there is a burden associated with following Him, but it is a light burden.  And why is it light?   Because it is only temporary.  Eventually we arrive at the deck above, and our souls are saved.  Eventually (though it seems like a long time) the exertion is done, our trial is over, and we are headed to paradise.

So let's stay on that strait and narrow road, even if some people on it don't quite meet our expectations.  Let's climb the ladder to be rescued, and in the end when we tumble over the railing, we'll find peace and healing beyond compare.  Let those who want to remain on the water--our home is far above.

Walking with Jesus

In the hymn above, the singer pleads to the Lord that Jesus walk with him through the many phases and facets of his life.  There are good sentiments in it, but I suggest that perhaps it's a bit wrong-footed.  Instead of praying that Jesus walk with us, we should be praying that we walk with Jesus.

I remember that when the Savior walked the earth, He did not batter down doors offering to heal the embittered souls who blamed God for their misfortune, nor did He allow those who were spiritually healed to sit on their laurels and do nothing but praise.  Instead, He called on men to forsake all to follow Him; He had a blind man wash mud out of his eyes, a centurion beg a Jew for a favor, and he had Jairus to go to the social trouble of putting out the professional mourners.  He constantly required people to stretch, to move, to change.

Does this mean that by following the commandments we're buying our salvation with good works, that somehow we are creating or deserving the grace of God?  Of course not.  But just like a baby being born is, in its own way, working to twist and turn and assist in birth, so we have to turn our souls toward God to fully accept the grace the He would freely give to us, if we would but let Him.

The Easy Yoke

The devil, of course, cannot create anything.  He can't innovate, update, produce, design, or form.  The most he can do is take what God has already made and alter, dilute, adulterate, take out of context, subvert, and change it.

For example, the Lord has stated that discipleship to Him is as an easy yoke, and that His burden is light.  "Come ye, all who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."  So if God does not laden us with heavy burdens, who does?

I find that one of the tools the devil uses is to manipulate God's moderate reality into two seemingly opposite extremes, then claim a false dichotomy.  Either man should be heavy laden with a hedge around the law, or man should not be laden with a law at all.  Either man is saved entirely by grace with no human intervention, or we must listen to hellfire and brimstone at church every week.  Either we can cavort like pagans on Fat Tuesday or we must mortify the flesh days afterward.  Even better if we can be convinced to do both.

The reality God has created, however, does not lie comfortably in any such dichotomy, simply because the adversary has co-opted the discussion and is controlling both sides of the debate.  Neither the ascetic nor the hedonist are in the right; instead, the right is somewhere in the middle, and most likely off to the left a little bit, away from where the devil has convinced us the issue lies.

As a result, real discipleship doesn't conform to what the world understands.  It's a stumbling block to them, it's foolishness...yet it is also eternal reality, so we need to understand what discipleship is, what it means, and what happens because of it.  It's hard, because our individualistic society doesn't get why we have to devote ourselves to anyone other than ourselves; it's easy because once we do,  we know exactly where we can get hope and salvation.  It's hard because we have to kill the natural man; it's easy because the natural man isn't what we want to be anyway, and we see such a better alternative.  It's hard because everything that surrounds us calls us to think as the world thinks; it's easy because One calls us to think as He thinks.

So ultimately, it's an easy yoke, but it is a yoke.  It's a light burden, but it is a burden.  Only when we accept the idea that medicine really does taste yucky, but not too yucky, will we finally arrive at the middle ground the Lord created in the first place.

The Parable of the Talents

When Jesus taught the parable of the talents, he made an interesting point. Three servants are given sums of money by their Lord, who goes on a long journey. Two of them are faithful and work hard with the money that is given to them. One of these faithful servants had been given five talents; the other had been given two. When the Lord returned, he found that the servant who had been given five talents had, through trade, made five more, for a total return on investment of 100%. He responded:

21 His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into thejoy of thy lord.

Next, the Lord finds that the servant who had been given two talents had, through trade, made two more, for a total return on investment of 100%. He responded:

23 His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithfulservant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.

Both servants were awarded exactly the same thing.  In other words, these servants' rewards didn't depend on what they had been given, nor even on how much they had, but on how much they made in relation to what they had been given, their return on investment. 

Similarly, while it may seem unfair that some are dealt a poorer hand in this world, in the end that won't matter.  It won't matter in the eternities if you were rich or poor, but whether you were productive or not.  It won't matter if you were popular or ignored, but whether you were kind or ignoring. 

So let's create, let's build, let's inspire, and let's make the most out of what we've been given.  In the end, when this world and everything in it passes away, all we'll have is our ability to create.

God Loves Inmates

I’m a correctional officer.  I work with male offenders in a medium-security correctional institution and have met some very shady characters.  I’ve dealt with drug cartel leaders, murderers, terrorists (though only minor ones), drug dealers, child molesters, and white supremacists, among others.  I’ve stopped reading their files because seeing the particular crimes for which they are incarcerated can make the bile rise up and the rational mind float away.  And in the nearly three years I’ve done this work, I have come up with one troubling conclusion: God loves them just as much as He loves me.

            On the one hand, I see them up to their worst: gambling, running with gangs, assaulting one another, lying through their teeth, and generally taking everything they can con from a staff member.  On the other, I’ve seen them be honest, patient, gracious, loyal, and even grateful. 

            Inmates, regardless of what they have done, are still fundamentally human and have access to the grace that Jesus Christ offers.  They have done vile things that both separate them from God and that spread blood and horror on the Earth.  In the end, though, are we non-inmates fundamentally different?  We don’t molest children, but non-inmates can also be jealous, adulterous, and selfish.  We, too, find ourselves light-years from the perfections and glories of God.  The fact that we’re inches or even yards closer than some other person won’t matter much if we don’t get closer to Him. 

            Each of us needs God’s love, and each of us has been given the freedom to decide what we want: freedom and life eternal, or captivity and eternal death.  Each of us can embrace the work of God (“For this is my work and my glory, to bring to pass the exaltation and eternal life of man”) or we can wander in strange places and do the works of the devil, and reap the rewards thereof.  In other words, we can love all men, including inmates, or we can damn ourselves with our own hate. 

            True love, the love of God, strengthens and ennobles men.  True love may not be gentle if gentleness would tempt to predation, as it would in prison.  True love may even be “tough love” if that is what wisdom calls for.  True love is acting as the Savior did, serving wholeheartedly and teaching unabashedly, for only when we love like our Savior can we truly say we love at all. 

            So when I’m giving inmates their meals, or their laundry, or listening in consternation as they ask the same question for the hundredth time, I have to love them.  God, after all, gives us our food, our clothes, and listens as we ask the same question for the hundredth time.  So let’s love one another, for if God loves inmates, then we should too.

Not a fan

I must admit, I am taking the title of today's post from a book I'm seen.  You see, we shouldn't be fans of Jesus Christ.

A fan will do a lot of crazy things for the object of his/her fanaticism, whether it's midnight releases, standing in line for hours, attending conventions, or any such self-imposed rigors.  Fans, however, just do the outward motions.  They'll buy the toys, but leave them in mint condition; they'll dress up as their favorite characters, but not truly examine what those characters teach;  they'll speak loudly in favor of a social virtue but do little or nothing in their own lives to make that virtue more common.

In short, we shouldn't be fans of Jesus Christ--instead, we should be His disciples.

To the uninformed, the disciple may seem just as illogical as the fan.  The disciple, for example, will donate large amounts of money and time to an organization with far more money and manpower than the disciple has.  He/she will give up previous or potential habits, will, at great effort, deliberately avoid seemingly harmless, socially acceptable behavior, and will, quite literally, change his/her life in order to accommodate the teachings of a lot of dead people.

Today, it seems like it's easier to be a fan than a disciple: the fan just has to jump and shout a lot, while the disciple has the quiet job of changing human nature.

Both will be highly visible efforts.  No one camps out days before a book signing without understanding that people will see you; no one gives up gluttony or vulgar speech without coming to terms with its social ramifications.

Of the two, discipleship is the hardest, and it is discipleship which is asked of us.  We're not asked to go about an occasional, herculean effort; instead, we're asked to work day-in and day-out.