“Serve the Lord with gladness;” Psalm 100:2
One day I made the mistake once again of falling into an old temptation. I took on more than God had given me and became quickly very overwhelmed. I drove a long distance and took a great deal of time picking up an enormous amount of free bread that is the bulk of my ministry’s paralyzed dog Mr. Simeon’s special diet along with a bunch of donated food for some people in need. I ended up totally wiped out not to mention responsible for a car jam packed with bakery bread for which I had not nearly enough room. I reached out for some help.
A sister in the Lord I had met not long beforehand immediately jumped in. She went to extreme lengths to make phone calls to friends with freezers to store the bread, jump in her car to come to my hotel, pick up a bulk of the bread, make another call, come back the next day to pick up more, drop the bread off at her friend’s houses to freeze, and voila. By that time I had repented because I had displeased the Lord in using the energy I needed for the work He had in fact given me. Not only had He forgive me, but now He had blessed me with a friend who had entirely removed the burden from my shoulders. Freeing me up to do the Lord’s work.
In the grand scheme of things, making some phone calls and driving to a hotel to pick up and store bread and then dropping it off at friends’ houses for storage may seem like such a small and insignificant thing to do. But it wasn’t small at all! My friend was serving me! And she was serving God! And she was freeing me up to serve God also!
Let us be careful, my friend. Sometimes some of us tend to think of serving God as being only about doing enormously big things for the Lord. Serving Jesus isn’t about the size of the service. It’s about obedience to Him in serving Him how He desires – and it’s about our hearts behind it.
My friend served with a heart of love and gladness, and her seemingly small act of service was wonderfully refreshing, inspiring, beautiful, blessed – and greatly appreciated by me. And, I can only imagine, by the Lord!
Keep your heart and eyes wide open for the Spirit of God’s leading in how He wants you to love and serve Him and others day by day!