a confession and a lesson learnt.

you know the story in the bible about Mary and Martha? how Martha was the one who ran about busying herself with all the responsibilities and duties while Mary was the one who sat at Jesus' feet, listening to every word He had to say.

i was always a Martha. i was the one who thought about everything that needed to be done and how they were supposed to be done. i identified when Martha complained about Mary not helping her with the obligations and i didn't see any wrong in Martha's service. after all, Martha was merely serving in the way that she best knew how. i did all the things i was supposed to do because i wanted to use every talent and gifting i had to return all the glory to God. i fulfilled responsibilities because doing things was the best way i know to serve. i didn't really feel that the chiding that Martha received for her work was all that justified.

but during SOS, God taught me to see things in a new light. Mary captured the heart, the essence of servanthood which was the undying devotion and desire to glean from her Lord and Saviour while Martha was executing acts of servanthood while excluding herself from fellowship with the greatest Servant of all.

i felt challenged to move from being a Martha to becoming a Mary. i remember clearly God asking me 'what is the point of all your service?' because i know that a lot of the time, my talents got in the way of really developing my relationship with my Almighty Saviour. i knew i neglected worship and fellowship with God because i was more concerned with what i thought was needed to be done.

it was that way how i sometimes got too carried away with how the worship team was doing. i got annoyed when people would turn up late, wouldn't carry their weight in the team, weren't prepared and weren't doing their passionate best. i got frustrated at everyone during the pre-SOS practice sessions because i felt that we weren't doing a good enough job.

but on the morning of SOS, i felt God challenging me to not get frustrated at the team. i promised that i wouldn't stress out, i wouldn't be impatient with anyone, i wouldn't let it affect my emotions and i was surprised how much of a difference it made to my own personal worship. i didn't get intense about who wasn't playing what correctly or if something wasn't right but tried having a good spirit while offering correction and assistance. and i felt more love and joy in not just playing, but also serving Him in this way.

God reminded me about the heart of servanthood. it's easy to serve when things seem good, like when you're on stage and the musicians in the team are highly skilled and experienced, but when the worship leader insists on irrational requests or the worship team is full of newbies and everybody is just being profoundly stupid, that's when the heart of servanthood is required to be put into practice. God deserves not just the best that we have, but ALL that we have.



i know this is a very wordy post. if you've managed to read it all the way to the end, i congratulate you.


p/s: SOS is short for School of Servanthood, a 3 day 2 night sleepover in church organized by my youth group.