Service is Hard

Doing service is hard. Not just because it takes up time, and I don’t have a lot of that to spare as I job search and look toward what happens after graduation. No, service is hard because of how it affects those doing service. On the surface level, volunteering is pretty shallow. It lets a group of people feel pretty good about helping their fellow human. It’s a good feeling: you feel good; you feel like you’re doing good. Too often, though, service stops there. We travel to a foreign country and take selfies with starving orphans as we sing to them and play soccer – only to leave them wondering why everyone keeps leaving. We hand out food at a soup kitchen or a shelter, but we don’t stop to ask why these people are hungry let alone what we could do to help.

Once we move past that barricade, though, service takes on a whole new identity. We become invested in the lives of the people we serve. Relationships are built along with the houses. We take time to hear stories and provide people that basic need: human connection. We move past service for our sakes and begin to take up their cross so that they can be freed from it for a little while. Volunteering at this level is hard. This is suffering and sacrificing even if only for a moment. We may never get the chance to experience life through the eyes of someone we serve; we may never have to go through that. But for a brief second, we give up our time, that feeling of “goodness”, our comfort, clean clothes, dry shoes, all so that another can bear them.

This kind of service reminds me a lot of a speech I did in high school: The Ragman. The poetic prose is a telling of the life of Jesus as a metaphor. In this story, Jesus is “The Ragman” who gives people his own clothes and takes theirs. By doing so, he gains whatever ailment they have (a missing arm, starvation, etc.) so they can have his strength. I feel like service is something similar. It asks us to take off our rags and give them to someone new. However, this isn’t the reason I said “service is hard.”

Service is hard because it inspires me to seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly – three tasks that are not easily done. It drives me to want to help everyone who is hurting. The hard part is that there is no way I can live in such a way that reduces my carbon footprint, doesn’t encourage slavery, gives back to the poor and needy, and refuses to allow corruption. It’s just not possible. So, the hard part of service, is that I’m left feeling like I will never do enough. I’m guilty for all of the things that I can’t do, and the humility refuses to take pride in the ways I do help.

It’s hard, but it’s necessary. And fortunately, when I’ve reached this point of service – past the shallow, and past the surface, I find joy in what I do again. I sacrificed that feeling of “goodness”. I sacrificed comfort, and hot meals, and dry shoes, and so many photos, but what I gained is immeasurably better. I found a home in this mess called humanity, and I found a way to make it a little brighter.

“What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ.”

–          Philippians 3:8

Good luck in the real world, and God Bless,
~XTopher