How do I serve?

Milka and I sat on the small stone wall talking after Bible club.  She had used a word I was unfamiliar with.  What does “tumikia mean?” I asked.  She said it meant to be “used up.”  You mean like using the sugar or the rice up completely?  No, she said, “It a word that means “service” or “to serve.”  

What a great picture.  I just kept thinking about that definition for the rest of the afternoon.  I had pictured an empty rice bucket or sugar container, every bit of it gone.   But the meaning was so much deeper—to be used up, spent—what a perfect way to explain service. 

It’s easy, isn’t it, to want to give some of us.  To be generous to an extent:  not just with resources—more often with our time and energy.  We want to pour our lives out, but not when it costs us too much or takes away from the things we really want to do.  Honestly, we sometimes think of giving up precious time as taking up our cross.  Seriously?  The instrument of death?  We think dying to ourselves looks like not yelling at the neighbor kids (or our own kids!)?  Surely, by God’s grace, we can do better than that!  “Whoever wants to be my disciple must take up his cross and follow me.”  Take up our cross, lay down our dreams and desires and hopes, and be free to carry the “light” and “easy” burden that Jesus offers in return.  Anything I could offer him would pale in comparison.

The church voices singing this simple chorus on Sunday stay with us:

“We’re leaving the sin of the world, we’re following Jesus our liberator/redeemer.”

“Oh, make our little lives count.

For the glory of your name.

Rivet our attention on Your cross,

And fuse our affection to yourself.

So open our mouths

And open our hands

And open our wallets

While we have breath

And make us the most radically

Loving people on earth

For the joy of all peoples

And the renown of your Name.”

--John Piper