thought exercise on Service

The fact that our works are done in the service of God is not enough, by itself, to prevent us from losing our interior life if we let them devour all our time and all our strength. Work is good and n...

In Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, the characters of Boromir and Frodo illustrate well the dichotomy between exaltation and service.  As a mighty warrior and heir-apparent to be the leader his...

When Pearl Harbor was bombed, one of the Americans who volunteered to serve his country was Bob Feller. Bob was a 23-year-old pitcher for the Cleveland Indians, a phenomenon who had already pitched a ...

The way most of us serve keeps us in control. We choose whom, when, where and how we will serve. We stay in charge. Jesus is calling for something else. He is calling us to be servants. When we make t...

Sometimes service means doing routine tasks even if we could have someone else do them. There is a story about Abraham Lincoln – possibly apocryphal but certainly in character – that a cabinet member ...

Recently, when I was in London, I went to the National Gallery. It was a weekday, but it was still crowded with people wearing headsets, staring at famous paintings, listening to a narrator explain th...

Part of the problem was that the atheist movement had primarily rallied around what it was against —religion. Consequently, it had struck a negative tone ever since its inception. Aware of this, ...

Writer Philip Yancey notes that toward the end of his life, Albert Einstein removed the portraits of two scientists–Newton and Maxwell–from his wall. He replaced those with portraits of Gandhi and Sch...

In his insightful work, Beyond Racial Gridlock, George Yancey provides a multi-faceted picture of both the brokenness of American race-relations, as well as a response couched in the gospel. In this e...

John Quincy Adams, the son of the second president John Adams, dedicated his life to public service and the great American project, serving in numerous distinguished positions throughout his career. H...

One of the most powerful expressions of humble, servant-like caring for others is found in C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce , in the character of Sarah Smith of Golders Green. Her quiet life of love tra...

What he [Jesus] was attempting to instill in his disciples was the attitude of a servant: humility and a willingness to put others ahead of oneself. In that culture, washing the feet of others would s...

The Swiss-German novelist Hermann Hesse published a short story in 1932 called "Journey to the East." In it, a group of men go on a long journey. Throughout their trip, they are accompanied ...

There is an old cliché from the Boy Scout movement in which three Scouts report that they had helped an old lady across the road. “Why did it take three of you?” asks the Scoutmaster. “Because,” they ...

God calls His people to lots of different things. Sometimes you feel a sense of calling to your job and, you know what, sometimes you don’t. You just work. I’m extremely thankful that I love what I do...

You’re glorifying something when you find it beautiful for what it is in itself. Its beauty compels you to adore it, to have your imagination captured by it. This happened to me with Mozart. I listene...

Harry Emerson Fosdick once told how as a child, his mother sent him to pick a quart of raspberries. Reluctantly he dragged himself to the berry patch. His afternoon was ruined for sure. Then a thought...

In Know Your Why , Ken Costa related an encounter with a barista in an airport in Austin, Texas. When he went to pick up a coffee before an early flight, he noticed that she was “cheerfulness itself”...

In More Give to Live, Dr. Douglas Lawson provides evidence that the urge toward generosity begins early in life. He describes a continuum that he calls the “Giving Path.” This path begins with parents...

A truly remarkable example of sacrificial courage took place in Folsom, New Mexico, in 1908. When a flood was racing toward the valley, a resident from the hills warned a local woman, S. J. Brooks, th...

The Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, in his book The Home We Build Together , points out to the reader that in scripture the description of the creation of the universe in Genesis is given a mere thirty-fou...

On February 24, 1791, Christian revivalist and pastor John Wesley penned a letter to encourage a Christian walking through some faith challenges:  Unless the divine power has raised you up . . . I...

Within the Christian community this leads to a prominence of teaching on the will of God and how to know it. Russ Johnston draws upon his own wide experience to remark how this continues to be one of ...

An ancient legend tells of a well-respected rabbi who would vanish from his synagogue for a few hours each Sabbath. His mysterious absences sparked curiosity among his students, who wondered if their ...

John Howard (1726-1790) was a British philanthropist and reformer who, based on his Christian convictions, dedicated his life to the improvement of hospital conditions and prison reform. On his tomb...

A passage often referred to in order to describe the sacrificial, countercultural quality of the early church comes to us interestingly enough, from one of its strongest critics, known later to histor...

Following the death of Albert Einstein’s wife, his sister Maja moved in to help with the day to day running of the home. She did this for an astounding fourteen years, which enabled him to continue hi...

When I was in Moscow in 1990 preaching at the Moscow Baptist Church, just blocks from the Kremlin, I told a packed crowd of worshipers that all through human history, as far back as recorded time and ...

People in the world naturally want to boss others. Imagine a boy beginning work with a firm. He has a lowly place and is ordered around by everyone. Do this! Do that! Every dirty job is his. He is the...

During the interview, Simon mentions that only 10% of Navy Seals make it through the initial training process and he gives some insights as to who gets through. It’s not the big, muscle-bound guys. T...