The Gift of Giving

Last time we had traveled to Thailand to work with the woman who produce our products we had taken a weekend trip to a beach resort that was so beautiful and relaxing but we both couldn’t figure out why we were so anxious to get back to hot crazy Bangkok, navigating the muggy crowded city and working with the woman but I finally concluded that there is something that happens to you when you begin to serve:

You cannot know true life without it, it brings us out of our own way which is so entrapping to self-fulfillment. When we serve we not only step out of ourselves but we are able to see what God can do through us and in others.  A peace and thankfulness for our own life and circumstance is inevitable. This brings about nothing other than freedom because being bound by oneself and one’s life is a place to drown.  When we serve we enter into a realm of unworthy power and knowledge and we slowly realize the power that we surrender to is perfect and true beyond anything on earth. I don’t know that we can truly experience this power without surrendering to servant-hood. In the end the servant is blessed with knowledge and understanding but in a way that is so sobering and humbling. 

For this reason we were ready to get back to the richer life that seemed to be unexpectedly transforming us, living a life for ourselves in contrast proved to be bland and unsettling.