Several years ago, a lady stood in the mission house and said, “It must be so nice to be able to serve people every day.”
I am certain my facial expression said exactly what I was thinking. I responded, “We didn’t start serving people when we moved to Guatemala. We didn’t begin loving people when we moved to Guatemala. And we didn’t decide to invest in people when we moved to Guatemala.”
Our location had absolutely nothing to do with our calling to disciple, love, and serve people.
It’s called being a disciple of Jesus Christ. It’s biblical.
Over the years, I have thought about her comment. Why do we compartmentalize serving and loving people? Whether at work, at church, in our homes, or in our daily routines, our lives should reflect the same heart we bring to a mission trip.
In my last blog, I wrote about how we were not a typical preacher’s family because we had only known one church our entire lives. But there were so many other things that we thought were normal.
We grew up watching our parents love, serve, and disciple people every single day. It was simply everyday life. It was being the hands and feet of Jesus—in Grand Bay, Alabama. Every. Single. Day. It was normal.
We thought it was normal:
– To have a man with special needs, Buddy Jones, to sleep on our couch four nights each week and spend all the holidays with us.
– To deliver groceries to a family that needs a little extra help.
– To help a single mother at Christmas.
– To have a pound cake in the oven for a widowed man so he knows he is not forgotten.
– To come home from school and find a man who needed a meal sitting at our kitchen table.
– To buy clothes for families serving in full-time evangelism.
– To put gas in the car of a woman who needs help.
– To attend volleyball, soccer, baseball, and football games to support a teenager.
– To always have extra Easter baskets and Christmas gifts for people who might need to spend the holidays with us.
– To invite someone visiting our church to join us for Sunday lunch.
– To work all day, then cook for more than 20 college students gathering in our living room every Wednesday night—and wake up early Thursday morning to clean the house.
– To play cards with a group of teenagers late into the night.
– To clean the gym floor so it is ready for basketball games.
– To take a meal to an elderly person every single Sunday.
– To spend countless hours with families in hospital waiting rooms.
– To postpone family Christmas celebrations, birthdays, and vacations to be there for another family’s crisis.
– To stop and help people as they navigate difficult days.
– To pay for countless meals simply because we want people to know they are loved.
– To clean the Sunday School room on Saturday nights.
– To do without their own car because someone else needed it.
– To serve in the church—teaching Sunday School or caring for babies in the nursery. Just serve.
– To open our home to people who have experienced devastating loss so they can find comfort.
-To working in a concession stand so all youth can have the opportunity to go to youth camp
-To driving a mini bus 20 plus hours one way to take college students skiing
-To taking on every role possible while still serving as Pastor
-To planning and going on youth camps
-To planning and leading home mission trips so teens could learn to serve in their own community
-To driving a bus for VBS every year
And to do it all with JOY!
To us, this was normal. It was simply the way we grew up, watching our parents live out their faith with action every single day.
To be the hands and feet of Jesus.
Not because they are in the ministry.
Not because of where they live.
Not because they are on a mission trip.
But because they are followers of Christ.
Because following Jesus isn’t about where you are. It’s about how you live.
You don’t have to move across the world to live on mission. You just have to live like Jesus, right where He has placed you.
Make being the hands and feet of Jesus your normalcy–regardless of your location!
