Dear Family,
I have a confession to make. I love to help people. I love to volunteer and work myself to the bone helping others. It feels good. It feels right. It feels godly to help and be available for those who need help. I love it. But that is not my confession, though doing the work and getting joy out of it might seem like ulterior motives, so perhaps a confession is necessary in that sense, though some layers of my being will have to be shelved until further notice. However, the confession that i would like to share is this: I do not like to ask for help. And in that sense i am the biggest hypocrite out there.
Why? Because i have no issue or problems encouraging others to ask for help. I even use biblical language as justification and motivation for people to ask for help, and yet all too often when push comes to shove i find myself unwilling and unable to ask for help. Pride is a pain, and one that i could live without. What about you?
Along those lines, i also feel helpless and unworthy when someone desires to serve me. I make a great argument why others are more needy and that i simply am ok. I dont need help. Serve someone else, i say. Pride rears its ugly head once again; if only i could shake this demonic traveler, because pride loves to chain me to lies and hinder my ability to grow and become all God wills and desires for me to be.
Which brings me to what this week's blog is about. Tomorrow night we will bend down and wash one another's feet. Many of us forging forward to be the first to serve, the first to dirty ourselves proving our love for brother, sister, neighbor. But the beauty of Love Feast is more than washing feet and breaking bread; it is having the true humility and love to be ok with letting someone wash our feet. Being served is just as Christlike as serving, and yet it is one aspect of being like Jesus that we skip over, all too easily.
If we are to immerse ourselves into the narrative and worship of Love Feast, we must don the clothe, absolutely, but we also must trust our feet, our lives, and our stories into the hands of our sisters, brothers, and our Savior, because unless we are willing to let others serve us, as Peter protested, Jesus truly will have nothing to do with us. Why? Because it is not just the sister or brother washing our feet; it is the resurrected Christ cleansing us, and don't we all need Jesus?
I have a lot to learn on what it means to truly be a mature follower of Christ. It involves serving, of course. But it also involves serving. It is in helping the least of these. But it is also includes asking for help, without reservation. Pride, as beautiful and addictive as it might be, is a demonic force that blinds us to the power of Jesus, through the hands of our sisters and brothers.
One more thing: Easter is coming! And the stone was rolled away. The tomb was empty. HE IS RISEN!
Shalom,
jerry
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