Service = Expression of Love

"Service is the overflow which pours from a life filled with love and devotion." ~ O. Chambers

Today's reading in My Utmost is focused on how my relationship with God is the starting point. It's amazing how I tend to categorize life when in fact life is an interwoven flow of relationships. I tend to put elements of life into boxes: work, church, home, social/familial. But that doesn't really seem right. Creating divisions, categories, causes me to divide myself into the sections I "need" to perform well in each category. But that doesn't really seem right. Turning my life into a to-do list with categories of tasks rather than looking at it as a flow of myself through each day... it doesn't really seem right.

I am a list maker. I use sticky-notes and note-pad apps to keep myself on track. I use calendars at work and at home. I have my 5:30-2:30 work block of time, my 3-5:30 task/self time, and my 5:30-10:30 hubby time. Divisions. Then I have my weekend time, Sabbath being my favorite day most weeks, with church, friends and family being priority on Saturday and tasks, fun, lazy-morning time relegated to Sunday. More division.

But Chambers used the word "overflow" which, by its very nature, requires flow. A life filled with love and devotion to God is the source of the flow. Service is the effect, not the cause, of love and devotion. Service should flow out of me with complete disregard for my divisions. "The Son of God reveals Himself in me, and out of devotion to Him service becomes my everyday way of life" Chambers says at the end of the reading for today, January 17. That's enough to cause a person to stop in their tracks and reflect. Everyday way of life. There is no division in a flowing- everyday way of life. I am not an employee, then an errand-runner, then a wife, then a church-goer, then a friend and family member, then myself. I am a believer in relationship with my loving God and from Him flows life and love and service and joy.

How does one maintain joy and faith in God? The method I'm focusing on is thanksgiving, thanks to Ann VosKamp and her book One Thousand Gifts. Gratitude in all things produces so many beautiful side-effects in life, one of them being joy and the desire to share what I have been given because of that joy. I had been thinking about starting a gratitude journal to name the gifts that God gives me but I hadn't actually done it because I wanted to have the perfect journal to use. So as I was standing in line at the store I happened to look over at a shelf and see what God had put there for me: a small green journal that said, "the grass is always greener on my side." Needless to say, I now have a gratitude journal and entry number one is "finding just what I need."