The all-comers servant
A
few years ago, our Holy Trinity home group hosted a guest speaker one evening
whose day job involved a professional career at the highest level, but who in
their spare time ran an initiative for the disadvantaged in Brussels. I
remember introducing the person to the group expecting a gentle start to the
evening, but I was taken by surprise. “Our job as Christians is to serve!” the
person began, urgently.
That
person meant service was for the whole-of-life - for them, the demanding,
high-level professional side on the one hand and the grass-roots voluntary
involvement with the needy on the other.
We see a similar dynamic in the life of Joseph in Genesis chapter 47. Able and intelligent Joseph had got himself the job of senior administrator with Egypt’s Pharaoh. But Joseph’s desire was to serve - not easy in this case because of Pharaoh’s greed in the face of increasing poverty and starvation among the Egyptian people. So Joseph had to marry up his job to serve self-centred Pharaoh, while at the same time trying to find a way to help the ordinary citizens in such great distress. Genesis recounts his success in achieving these not obviously reconcilable aims.
I
believe our task as Christians is indeed to serve for life in which ever way
our heads need to turn. This can be challenging and requires canny judgement
combined with godly discernment. But it pays dividends. I pray for serving hearts for Christians
everywhere in any of the many ways in which God calls us.”
Sue
Bird
The
History of Joseph and His Brethren, Owen Jones, 189-1874, scanned and
archived at www.OldBookArt.com
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