Serving Those Around Us

This post is from Moms Take Ten episode 74, God In Our Daily Interactions–Serving Those Around Us, which you can listen to wherever you listen to podcasts or at https://sites.libsyn.com/403493/god-in-our-daily-interactions-serving-those-around-us

The podcast, God’s Big Story, came out with a new miniseries this summer about worshiping God. They are talking through Jesus’ response to the lawyer about which is the greatest commandment. Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matt. 22:37-40). My kids and I just started listening to it and it is so good! I think their series is teaching our kids what we are talking about here on Moms Take Ten, only our miniseries is focusing on the parents’ role. Our last three episodes have been about growing an awareness of and love for God in our children by Playing the Bible, Talking about the Bible, and Seeing God Around Us. This episode is about serving others, which is an act of love. God’s Big Story said, “We worship God with our actions.” That’s exactly it! God is worshiped by our love for other people. Other people are blessed when we serve them. And as we serve, we get to partner with God in the work he is doing in both their lives and ours. 

Helping our kids to think outside of themselves and their own needs and wants is a valuable endeavor. The word for “one another” is used over 50 times throughout the New Testament. We are taught to love one another, encourage one another, live in harmony with one another, bear with one another, forgive one another, and yes, serve one another. Serving others is one way that we build awareness and thoughtfulness of other people. As our children serve others, their love for others can grow. They learn more about how God loves and values all people, and how God wants them cared for, and this in turn teaches them more about how God loves and values them. 

Serving opportunities look different depending on the age of your children. There are ways to serve those in our home and those outside, those in our neighborhood and those in another part of the world. 

One of the biggest ways that my children serve others is through Safe Families and foster care hostings. They are learning to help guests feel welcome in our home. They are learning to share their possessions and their space. They are learning to love and care for others, whether it is providing a bottle, helping change a diaper, or getting a bed ready for a new friend to stay in. We talk about some of the reasons that kiddos come to stay with us and my children are learning to have compassion for people in all situations. 

Our church has a food pantry and my kids help donate food there monthly. We have had an increased number of people asking for money on the streets in our area so we have sat on the kitchen floor and put together bags of snacks that we can pass out. Last year, we rode our bicycles at an event for a residential program for women who had experienced trafficking. This year, we walked a mile on behalf of Safe Families. For both of those, the kids made videos with me to raise money and celebrated whenever a donation came in.

Because my children are younger, we can’t go do many of the serving opportunities that are in our area like working at a food bank, packing food at Feed My Starving Children, volunteering at a homeless shelter, etc. Maybe your kids are that age and you can start to talk to them about how they might want to get involved. All families can do things like sponsor a child and stay connected by writing letters and sending pictures. If you know someone who is fostering, or where there is only one partner, or who is simply struggling, you can partner with them by making meals, watching their kiddos for a bit, bringing them supplies, all of which your kids can be a part of. 

I was reading the book, Devoted: Great Men and Their Godly Moms by Tim Challies. In the chapter on the Moody Family, we learn that D.L. Moody, the great evangelist, grew up in incredible poverty. Moody and his nine siblings were raised by his widowed mother, whose father had passed away when he was only four and his mother was pregnant with twins. D.L Moody says this about his mother Betsy, “There was one time we got down to less than a loaf of bread. Someone came along hungry, and she says, “Now, children, shall I cut your slices a little thinner and give some to this person?” And we all voted for her to do it. That is the way she taught us.”

That story was so powerful to me–the willingness of all the children to give of the little they had for the sake of another, all because of the way their mother had raised them. It reminded me of the widow Zarephath and her son who were facing starvation when Elijah asked her for some bread. She had been preparing to use the last of her flour and olive oil to make one last meal for her son before she assumed they would die. Elijah asked her to make him bread first. She did and her action was rewarded with miraculous provision from the Lord. The miracle itself is amazing. Her sacrifice was immense. What did her son think? What did he learn from that experience?

What are our children learning from us about loving God and loving others?

Bringing the examples closer to home, we can teach our children to serve without even leaving the house. Teaching helpfulness and thoughtfulness in our home life lay the foundation for serving outside. Are chores a task they have to check off or are they an invitation to serve the family? Are we asking our children for their help or are we doing it all ourselves? I have an episode from early on in Moms Take Ten about letting our children help. That was months ago and I’m still working on that because it is still hard for me! When our kids sin against another, we can help them reconcile by serving the one they hurt. When one member of the family is sick, they can help provide care, bringing food or a drink, a blanket or another box of tissues. 

We can utilize the skills we spoke of in the past three episodes to teach our children to love others. When we play the Bible, we can play stories like the widow Zarephath and talk to them about what that would be like. When we talk about the Bible, we can speak of God’s heart for people, read verses about his desire for mercy and the one-anothers. When we see God around us, we can point to the way people display God and how much he loves each and every one of us. We can remind them that they are his workmanship created for good works which God prepared beforehand, and we can get them to dream about what good works they could do that day, or in the future as they get older.

I was reminded the other day that God’s promise to Abraham that he will be blessed to be a blessing actually applies to me as well. Because that promise was spoken about not just Abraham, but about his offspring. Not only his physical offspring, but his spiritual offspring as well. Paul teaches us in Galatians 3:29, “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.” If we are his heirs, then we too have been blessed to be a blessing. Whether we have plenty, or we have little as the Moody family had, we still are blessed in Christ and can bless others through our love and service, and of course, our sharing of our faith. This is the lineage that we are inviting our children into as we play the Bible, talk about it, see God around us, and serve the ones he has put in our lives. It is all so that he will be glorified in their lives and so that they will come to delight in living for him.

By his grace, may that be so in our families. Thank you for joining me in this miniseries! Have a wonderful day!