How Can I Be a Servant When I Want to be Great?

There is something I constantly struggle with - its about not being great, but wanting to be great - but then, as some friends remind me, "you got to write to get your name out there if you are ever going to be noticed." I don't write, so I don't get noticed. If I don't get noticed, hey I can't become great.

Once I had a conversation with Bob Webber about an idea I had when we were together at Northern Seminary. He encouraged me that the idea I had would be a great topic for a book. I responded saying, "That's the difference between you and me - you think in terms of books, I think in terms of paragraphs."

Well so maybe the real issue is that I am not disciplined enough to become great. There is probably great truth in that.

I was reminded again of this struggle within me again as I read through the Scripture, meditations and questions on the daily prayer site run by a group of Irish Jesuits aka sacred space for May 20th. The focus was on the passage from Mark 9 in which Jesus' disciples were jockeying for recognition and greatness.

What jumped out at me was: "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all." I realize that as long as I focus on being great I will be neither great nor a servant - I miss it all. But then it is not about being either - as if there were a number of steps to becoming a servant. Rather I am discovering, each time I wrestle with this, that it is an attitude, involving contentment, being open to the people God brings into my life and the ones God leads me to, an attitude of not worrying about whether I will ever be great, but just being available for what God has in mind for me and to be open to that.

Being a servant requires a lot of trust, faith, and just a sensitivity to seeing how the Spirit of God is moving and touching the lives of those God connects me with. It is again coming to realize, its not about me (that's so hard to realize), its about what God is up to in the world.

And so I am trying to learn to pray again to be open to what God is doing, where God is leading, and to live in the moments God opens up - so that I can somehow be a servant in those contexts. Someday I'll get to the place where I don't spend a lot of time thinking about how I'm coming across, or what others think about me in the midst of my being available to them.

Hopefully someday I get into the rhythm of being a servant with no aspirations for anything else.

Roland