Our church had encouraged us to participate in SERVE LEXINGTON, a project challenging our members to get into the community and serve others. It sounded like such a great idea when Steve & I signed up with Habitat for Humanity®.
But now here it was Friday night and we were exhausted. Neither of us was excited about our commitment for the following day. “Do we have to go?” We seriously thought about abandoning our commitment. Realizing it was not an option, we tried to encourage one another: “We’ll be so glad we did.” We went to bed dreading the following day. We were so tired and had so much to do of our own. How could we commit an entire day to serve another?
We showed up Saturday morning and the team so happily greeted us with smiles. We were given our instructions and directed to the small house on the corner where we would spend our day serving another. We worked hard! We laughed, we made new friends and we were incredibly blessed by the stories of the other workers.
A curious woman who had been driving by stopped and offered plenty of conversation but didn’t offer to help. She said, “I wish I had time to volunteer.” I thought to myself, “We’ve all put in a full week and have plenty of our own work to do but we have CHOSEN TO SERVE.” One of the other volunteers was bold in his reply, “You have time. You’ve had time to have three strokes in the amount of time you’ve been here talking.”
We were there serving because we chose to be there serving. We were there serving because Christ calls us to serve others!
16 By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. 17 But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? 1 John 3:16-17 (NKJV)
We left the project exhausted and yet exhilarated by the experience. As we walked to the car to leave I glanced back at the homeowner. She was smiling ear-to-ear admiring the results of the day’s work. I knew we had made the right choice. We have the awesome privilege to serve others!
Copyright©2014, Gloria Stucky
Photo by Mitch Lawrence