Faith of a Servant

One of the challenges of living your faith with the heart of a servant is that it's very, very easy to slip into a heart in which you have the faith of a servant. 

Read that again if you have to. 

I introduced the idea yesterday that this is more problematic than it sounds on the surface, and it really is. It sounds like it wouldn't be that big of a deal. Who wouldn't want to have the faith of a servant? Jesus was a servant, and we are supposed to be like Him. He is our Teacher, so we should be His servant. He told us that whoever wants to be first among us should be last, and whoever wants to be greatest should be a servant to others. There seems to be a strong biblical indication that having the faith of a servant would be a great thing. 

But...it's not. 

Because one of the things I've come to realize is how easily, when I'm constantly serving as an outward expression of my faith, everything I do for my spiritual health and growth becomes an exercise in preparation for ministry. 

I read the Bible, but I'm thinking about who else might need to hear that. What it might sound like wrapped into this message or that one. I'm praying, but I'm praying more for how other hearts will be impacted than for God's impact on my own heart. 

I'm listening to the worship through headphones to get the balance of sounds and levels just right, but I'm not hearing the words or the melodies. I'm following along with the words on the screen so that I know when to advance the slide show, but I'm not really reading them. 

Everything I'm doing is done with an eye and an ear toward how those I'm serving will experience it. I'm focused so much on others having a technologically flawless, inspirational, motivational, instructive, awe-inspiring, truth-ingesting experience that I'm no longer having an experience at all. 

I have become just a vessel - a thing through which the goodness of God pours, but doesn't stick much. Because the faith of a servant is a faith that thinks more about who it is serving than it does about itself. 

Again, this sounds like a good thing. Selflessness. Un-self-consciousness. True sacrifice.

But it's not really a sacrifice if you don't hold it first to give it away. 

And thinking of yourself not at all is not an act of un-self-consciousness; it's an act of self-diminishment, which is never what God asked of us. 

I'm not alone in this. This is a sentiment that other ministers in various capacities have shared with me over the years, especially worship ministers and pulpit ministers who sense they are expected to be on stage every weekend, giving their worship away as a gift to everyone else. It's this really fine line, but it's so easy to cross in that, without even recognizing it, your faith becomes a practice instead of a presence; something you do for others instead of something that nourishes you. 

This is how, I think, so many pastors become enamored by the admiration of the flock. They have given away their faith as a gift to those they are serving, so the only thing they have to bolster their own hearts is the praise of those who receive that gift. As long as the congregation loves it, your faith must be doing something good...even if you no longer feel it in your own heart. Even if it's been a long time since you've had a moment with God just for yourself. 

Such is the faith of a servant. 

So...what now?