Servant-hood

When we played servants as children, I was always the Grand Lady who ordered everyone else around. I was never the servant, at that Lady's beck and call. I wasn't very good at being told to clean my room or help my mum around the house either. Later on, I worked in Cusomer Service and hated every minute of humbling myself and doing whatever for the customers. I got out of that job as soon as I could!

But something I read yesterday in Leslie Ludy's Authentic Beauty hit me right between the eyes. I think this verse expresses it well:

Mark 10:45 (New International Version)
New International Version (NIV)

Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society
[NIV at IBS] [International Bible Society] [NIV at Zondervan] [Zondervan]

45For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

Am I more important than Jesus that I should be served? I think not.

Ludy is writing in the context of marriage. When I think about marriage, I have thought a lot about what my husband will be like, what he'll do for me, how he'll make me feel. But I realised yesterday that I shouldn't be thinking about marriage in terms of what I'll get out of it at all. I will be going into marriage to serve my husband. To do him good all the days of my life. To iron his shirts and make his bed and (maybe) to bear his children. For him. Not for me. This is a radical change in my thinking. I'm actually still shell-shocked and can't quite believe that I'm writing this and believing it whole-heartedly, with every fibre of my being. Marriage is about service. And, hard though it will be, it's something I'm excited about and enthusiastically looking foward to with the future-husband God has somewhere hidden away for me. Or put right under my nose so I can't see him!

I've said many times that this time in my life is the time of preparation for marriage. I was too busy partying in my teens and twenties when I should have been preparing for my future or I would no doubt have learned this lesson earlier. Having made the realisation that I need to serve, I now need to learn how by serving others in preparation for serving my husband. (I would point out here that I have no certain assurance of every marrying but, as it is the norm for most and God's intention for a man to leave his parents and be joined to his wife etc, I'm assuming marriage is in the future and will prepare for it until God tells me his plans are otherwise.) So I need to learn how to serve because I have strenuously avoided it up until now. I have a feeling I'll be swallowing a whole lot of pride in the days and weeks (and months!) to come.

I took my first baby-step today. My parents had to come to my home today and I tried to have everything cleaned up and hoovered before they arrived not because I felt it needed done but because I know my mother likes to see the house looking nice. Now, it's far from perfect - I have issues with clutter and the untidy child's room has become the untidy, dusty house of an adult - but it's a start. I would usually have said, 'It's my house and I'll live with dust if I want to.' But I know this bothers my mother so I did as much as I could before she arrived. It's just a baby-step but every journey starts with a single step in the right direction.