Vision.

The past couple of days I thought about what "serving" means, and what 'joy in serving' means, and if the word 'serving' should be emphasized or thrown around so much.

We shouldn't (just) think of serving the fellowship as: I'm helping out with these responsibilities or these things that need to get done. Otherwise we'll just take up little projects here and there, and be doing all these things, thinking that we're helping out.

Mary and Martha: Jesus said that Mary chose the more important thing.

I think a lot of people don't see behind the literal story/incident of Mary and Martha. They just see it as: one did stuff and one sat in the presence of Jesus. And people start saying things like "there needs to be a balance between Mary and Martha". They say things like that because they are trying to be practical and they know God hasn't called us to not do things either.

But the emphasis, as always, is on the heart of both women. It's their focus, their motivation, where their energy is coming from, why they're doing what they're doing. From the story, you can get a sense of where Mary's heart is. You can imagine when Mary is cleaning her room, she is singing worship songs in her heart while cleaning, or she is thinking about Jesus or how beautiful God is or something. She is so in love with and consumed by Jesus that when she serves, she is doing it for Him and thinks of Him, not seeing it as something that needs to be done or that she is helping people out, but really just serving the Lord Himself.

When we serve, we must remember our vision--our personal vision--what God has personally called us to do this semester on this campus. Every little project we take up could be related to that vision. And sometimes we have to say no. We have to be okay with not helping others out, if we feel that God isn't calling us to that. Often we feel compelled to fill in where there is a need, but God's ways are different. Maybe if you didn't fill in, the fellowship would change the way things are done, or rethink certain things.

So, when we say "serving", do we mean serving the fellowship, serving the Lord, serving others, or perhaps all of the above? And also, when we say that we must rest from serving, we really mean that God has not called us to serve in every opportunity that we have taken up. We never really rest from serving, if my definition of serving is correct. We serve others when we love them, and we never stop loving others or loving and doing God's commands. But yea, this paragraph is just some technical thoughts about definitions of words and phrases. Not as important as the rest.

Hope this is some food for thought.