Need vs. Desire

This last week, I was honored to be included at the GCL staff team planning retreat, where the staff members get together every year to discuss what the church is going to look like in this upcoming year. A significant part of this time involves dividing up responsibilities amongst the staff team based on what we are specifically passionate about and what needs there are in the church. I was so happy to see two of my good friends who plan to be returning to Gainesville in August after a year or more of being gone raising support. For me, it was easy to say I would be excited about building onto what responsibilities I already have, but for my two friends, it seemed strange, since they are essentially starting from scratch.

It reminded me of a similar situation I was in three years ago, when I left Gainesville for seven months to work in the Disney College Program. When I left, I had been co-leading a music team for two years and I left with the agreement that my co-leader would take care of the team while I was gone and when she graduated, I would return and take the music team from there. But upon my return, seven months later, I found that my music team had been given to someone else. The only aspect in which I had been serving for years, had been given to someone else, who was already leading a homegroup as well as leading in many other ways. I now had nothing. I was like a freshman again. People even forgot that I even led the music team before I left.

I think this was the first time I had really been faced with the idea of my own replaceabilty. This was the first time that I realized that I am not needed, that the church will not fall apart without me. Now that I look back at this anecdote three years later, it reminds me of a verse that I really did not understand even until just this last Christmas break:

"Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, watching over them—not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be..."

-I Peter 5:2a

I should lead and serve not because I am needed (because I am not needed), but simply because I want to. If only I had understood this verse at the time, I would not have had the prideful thought in my mind that I was the entitled to the music team when I came back and that I was the only one who could lead it.

This lesson of Need vs. Desire is a lesson I wish I had learned much earlier in my college career. I spent five and a half years with the mindset of, "I will do well with the job I have been given. Then someone will notice how well I do and give me more. Then I will have increased responsibility and I will climb the ladder of my own ambition." After all doesn't Luke 16:10 say, "He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much..."? But this mindset led to such a vicious jealousy when I didn't get noticed and I wasn't given increased responsibilities. I began comparing myself with the people around me, thinking, "Why is this person being given all these responsibilities? Why is that person leading a homegroup and a music team and teaching on Sunday and this and that and still being asked to do more, and yet I have been leading the same music team for five years and have done nothing else except a brief interlude of homegroup leading over the summer. It must be because I am inadequate and unworthy and doing a poor job, that no one asks me to do more." I even began to be dissatisfied with the work I had been given.

It was not until this Christmas break that I realized (after reading I Peter 5:2) that it is really more Biblical to volunteer than it is to wait to be asked. 

Now, I understand the hesitation. I'm sure we have all seen those people who will claim a responsibility out of pride (I know I have). They will volunteer to take a responsibility or leadership role, assuming that they will be granted their request, because they assume that they are the best for the job. We think that volunteering is pride and waiting to be asked is meekness and humility. After all, the meek "will inherit the earth" and didn't Jesus say, "...do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited... but when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he many say to you, 'Friend move up higher..."? [Luke 14:8-10].

But I will argue that volunteering with the right attitude (volunteering with desire, rather than entitlement) is not prideful, it is bold. And waiting to be asked is a false humility, confused with timidity, and "God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline." [II Timothy 1:7] It is actually waiting to be asked that is prideful, expecting that someone will recognize the great work that I have done. It is actually volunteering that is a humbling experience because I am presenting myself to have my work judged. It is saying, "this is what I would desire to do and I am submitting myself to your discretion as to whether or not you will let me do it."

And I will say that it is good that we are not needed, but that we desire to serve. Need is obligation and desire is passion. If we serve out of obligation, the result is less than desirable, but if we serve because we are passionate about something, we will put so much more into it and the result is that much better, and God receives all the more glory, and isn't that really our goal in the first place? My former mindset was rooted in climbing the perceived ladder of influence and ambition, but that is not what ministry is about. Ministry is solely about bringing glory to our God, who loved us enough to die for us! That is what I am passionate about!

So if you feel like you are constantly being passed up or overlooked for serving opportunities, stop waiting. Volunteer for what you're passionate about and see what happens.

"You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask."

-James 4:2