Humility in Service

"You can gauge your heart of service by how you react when someone actually treats you like one... The position that you occupy [driver, trainee, barney coordinator, whatever] is immaterial. The condition of your heart is essential."

Wednesday's blurb on humility drove me back to a chapter I recently read on the topic of service from The Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster:

"When we choose to serve, we are still in charge. We decide whom we will serve and when we will serve. And if we are in charge, we will worry a great deal about anyone stepping on us, that is, taking charge over us. But when we choose to be a servant, we give up the right to be in charge. There is great freedom in this. If we voluntarily choose to be taken advantage of, then we cannot be manipulated. When we choose to be a servant, we surrender the right to decide who and when we will serve. We become available and vulnerable" (emphasis mine).

The call [or at least a call] this summer is this: humble yourself, even in terms of how you view your commitment to serve this summer. Don't just choose to serve, but choose to be a servant. And then, if/when you're treated like a servant, you'll be free to authentically smile, fist bump the Jesus who re-defined deity in terms of being a servant (whole other topic entirely) and is stooping lower right alongside you, and keep cleaning the ski boat or swimming out the front tie or playing endless games of Mafia or un-staking to move AGAIN for program, or, or, or...