here to serve
“What else I can do to help?” Riley asks again for maybe the sixth time, hands on her hips, that grin stretching wide. Riley loves to help. She asks this of my so-beautiful friend, who stands hot-cheeked and fingering a hasty ponytail, assessing an assortment of baskets heaped with supplies, a row of folding tables haphazardly crammed beneath the trees. My friend has planned a Summer-launching cookout for our youth group, complete with everything needed to tie dye logo t-shirts. “When you wear these,” she tells the kids, “remember that you’re ambassadors for Christ. Remember that you’re loved.”
The teens crowd around the tables, some still folding and stretching rubber bands over dripping white shirts, some upending bottles of dye–murky blue, purple, green, red, bright yellow—over the banded sections. Questions fly at my friend like balls lobbed over the tables, but each time Riley asks, my friend patiently pauses amidst the mounting chaos and gives Riley another job–something to carry, something to set up.
And no matter the significance or longevity of the duty, Riley readily agrees, setting off in the direction of whatever awaits, giddy to participate in my friend’s work. Maybe it looks like I’m engrossed with the tie dye—my hands move over squirt bottles and shirts, but the learner in me watches and listens while God teaches me something about serving. When I ask Him to make me a servant, when I acknowledge that like Jesus I’m here to serve rather than to be served, what does that really mean? Riley’s love for my friend sounds in Riley’s voice–in the I get to help her beneath Riley’s every assent, in the smile that spreads across Riley’s face, in the way she obeys without second-guessing the task. I watch and learn that far from burdensome, these opportunities to help come to Riley as gifts of grace, silently communicating a wealth of value.
“Adam, come help,” Riley says now, turning, waving her arm in a wide, beckoning arc, en route to bring out another table.
“One ‘help’ and then finished,” Adam says darkly, and I smile. My son says what so often I think when God beckons me away from my self-centeredness. My attitude, far from grateful, sometimes sours the closer I get to action, as I lick my wounds and consider my own feelings. I look up, watch Adam saunter grumpily after his sister, and realize how often I miss the joy while living out of a spirit of complaint. Today both of my children help, but only one can’t stop smiling over the chance. It’s one thing to obey, and another to recognize the I get to in doing so. That recognition brings Riley back over and over, anticipating, even asking, for the next opportunity.
