Gifts are for serving

It’s a new month! And this September gifts are on my mind.

We are heading closer to the most anticipated holiday season of the year. I can bet you that as early as next week, we will start seeing commercials on TV and other media platforms with holiday offers, raffles and feel good carols.

I love this time of year! It’s as if a blanket of goodwill settles all over the world, managing to blunt, even if slightly, the sharpest, roughest edges of life’s realities.

And of course we will also see organizations and notable individuals make charitable contributions to those who may not have so much to share during these times.

But away from the temporary glitzy limelight, I am thinking of men and women who find a way every day to give in big and small ways, in mundane and special ways.

Two of those people are young men that I came across on TikTok. One is Devon Rodriguez. He is a supremely talented artist. Basically, he draws portraits of people’s faces, mainly when he is travelling on trains, though sometimes even when he is standing in line at a café or an event.

He captures these ordinary faces with such depth and detail that it takes one’s breathe away — soldiers back home from duty, tired moms with their children, singles immersed in their phones, workaday types lost in thought — all captured magically on his canvas.

Devon has a way of drawing out a person’s essence that is just rare. He then signs off on the paper and hands it to the subject.

Their reactions are always priceless.

At first cautious and even a bit resistant and then they take a good look at the picture and break down into a mixture of shock, relief, gratitude and appreciation. You can almost see a light bulb go on in their eyes at a new level of awareness of just how beautiful and unique they are. Someone has truly ‘seen’ them and now they see themselves, as if for the first time.

The other person is a gentleman by the name dfaguimba. This guy goes about hugging strangers on the streets, on the sidewalks, in shops, everywhere. Interestingly, very few people resist. People are so warmly expectant of a hug that it is just pleasant to watch.

He has gained such a huge following in Europe that people now ask him to travel to their towns just for a hug. There are times that he is busy doing his own thing on the street and he gets attacked by a mob of little children or young men and women all angling for a big bear hug.

I heard that he got a corporate sponsor and is now able to travel and fulfill the wishes of strangers on his page.

A world in deep need

These two young men are a stark reminder that there is such an acute need for love and compassion in this aching world. This need is overwhelming, and yet they have found their own little ways to fill this need in their surroundings.

And then I think about my place in all this as a child of God. Once, even the Lord Jesus stopped and acknowledged the overwhelming need He saw before him. The scriptures in Matthew record that ‘when he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless, like a sheep without a shepherd.’

That was after a particularly heavy schedule previously in the chapter. He had healed a paralyzed man, raised a dead girl, healed the lady with the issue of blood, healed two blind men and a demon possessed mute man. Then it seems as if he looked back at the crowd and realized that he had not even touched the tip of the ice-berg.

Turning to His disciples Jesus remarked, ‘The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.’

As believers, we have been sent out to be the light and love of God in this hurting and needy world. We ‘carry God’ as one singer put it. Imagine if we acknowledge and go in His power to serve as we have been uniquely shaped to.

Look at what the scriptures say about you:

‘I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.’

And again, ‘I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms,’

‘For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.’

Sometimes we get caught up with ‘doing life’ so that we forget the business our Father would have us do.

Sometimes we get caught up with ‘doing life’ so that we forget the business our Father would have us do.

Other times we are caught up in the comparison trap — looking at the more visible and pronounced gifting of others and deciding that ours is not worth serving out to the world for the glory of God.

And then sometimes we are tied in twists and knots about the distinctions and operations of natural talents and spiritual gifts and fruits that we complicate the very simple essence of having them distributed in these jars of clay-service!

What if today you just decided to trust the Father and commit all of these treasures He has stored up in you to the Holy Spirit and served! Serve in your family, serve on the way to work, serve at work and when at the line in the supermarket! How many lives would you touch for God?

This past month God reminded me of how simple it is. We had walked in to a prayer meeting with a lady whom I didn’t recognize. Though we didn’t exchange pleasantries on our way in, I gave her a smile. I’ve always loved smiling at people. It’s my way of making others feel welcome. On our way out of the meeting, after we had become a little more acquainted with each other, she remarked that I had a welcoming and friendly face. It was a very kind compliment coming from her. It also reminded me of how often we unknowingly impact others. It was her first time to the prayer meeting and I am glad that she had felt welcome by that little act.

Now if you stopped me on any given day and asked me about my gifts I would make much of my writing and speaking, but I realize there is so much more that God has stored in me that I can use to serve the world and bring the love of Jesus to many who need it. Smiling and sharing meals are some of the ways I am exploring more intentionally.

You may not be a hugger, or an artist skilled with the pencil. We all have something. In fact you have so many treasures that when you begin to take the opportunities that tug at your heart to fulfill need before you, you will be surprised!

The son of man did not come to be served but to serve. And then He gave us a mandate to go out into all the world making unto Him disciples of men.

That is not possible without following the pattern of the savior, which was a pattern of service. It was His service on earth that endeared many to follow Him and listen to good news of the Kingdom of God.

May He not find in you and I laborers unavailable to bring in the harvest. Your gift and mine is for serving.

(Matthew 9, Galatians 2:20, Ephesians 3:18-20, 2:10, Matthew 20:28, 28:19-20)