To Serve!

Hello Friends,

It has been quiet some time indeed since I have wrote. Well, here I am and here is a new topic for you to chew on.

“To love God and neighbor is not something abstract, but profoundly concrete: it means seeing in every person and face of the Lord to be served, to serve him concretely. And you are, dear brothers and sisters, in the face of Jesus.” (Pope Francis, Address during Visit at the Homeless Shelter “Dona Di Maria,” 5/21/13) 


I have found myself with a desire to help and serve recently. Not because "The Pope says to" but because I've experienced the joy of sharing and helping...but there is something deeper.

Recently, I have been taking my daughter to Meijer (a local department store chain) and buying a few toys, clothes and baby items and donating them to the Catholic Charities of West Michigan. It feels great. Knowing that someone who doesn't have the means to provide a bottle, diapers, or even a little teddy bear for their own will now enjoy one. I would love to do more, but I find myself constrained within my budget, and feeling guilty that I can not do more.

So then, in my typical whirlwind mindset, I found myself thinking about a few things. There are numerous Saints who inherited huge fortunes, and donated it all. Which then made me think "What if I don't have a fortune, but still want to donate?" As well as "How, besides purchasing items with income, do I serve?"

Last week, I applied for a volunteer job at Muskegon Rescue Mission. I was in there for less the a minute to get the application, and then to drop it off. While I was in there I felt a disparity, a void that was getting filled, a canyon that was getting a bridge. I saw the volunteers there who had a genuine smile...with no income! Crazy, right?

Well, I continue. I was thumbing through Romans tonight, and came across Romans 1:18-23...
 ^"18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, ¹⁹ since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. ²⁰ For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
²¹ For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²² Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools ²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
²⁴ Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. ²⁵ They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
²⁶ Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. ²⁷ In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
²⁸ Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. ²⁹ They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, ³⁰ slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; ³¹ they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. ³² Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them."

Which, reminded me of Exodus 20:23 - "Do not make any gods to be alongside me; do not make for yourselves gods of silver or gods of gold."


Ok Geddy.....how does this tie in?

If we hoard our cash...spend it lavishly on ourselves, we fall victim to worshiping it. Worshiping doesn't mean you put it on a marble pedestal and do a dance around it...

If we are constantly worried about how we look, and what we end up spending our money on for ourselves, we then, in turn, worship ourselves.

Look at our "Time" and our "Money." God has given them both to us. At least, He has given us the ability to make more money, or put some of us in a better spot financially then others...but it's not about money. Look at the Parable of the Woman Who Gave All (Luke 21:1-4). Giving $100 or giving $10 is giving.  It's a service.

Time...God is the one who put us on this Earth. We are the ones who decide what we do while we are here. Besides being a Sunday Christian, how else can we worship the Lord? Giving money and time. Two things that were given to us by The Holy Father Himself.

My point in all of this is, in serving other, we are serving God. This is a way to worship him outside of the pews and see a direct effect to our cause. You don't have to go out and buy stuff to donate. You just have to be willing to listen to Him, the options are there. It's up to you to decide what you do...

So, when we give, we are doing a service to our Lord, a service to the people he created and doing our part to make the world a little better.

Take care and God Bless.