Growing up my faith was very much about my own personal experience and development, it wasn't very well connected to service. Sure in high school I was very involved in community service, but it was for my own benefit not the benefit of those I was serving or even to serve God. I did community service because it helped me feel good about myself, like I was doing something good for the world and that built me up. I found satisfaction in the compliments and encouragement of others and that fueled me to stay involved in service activities so that others would continue to think highly of myself. Looking back on this I realize that my faith life was very skewed towards myself.
As life went on I continued to stay involved in community service because it was something that brought me satisfaction and it wasn't until I was finishing college and working here in West Virginia that I realized it really isn't about me. Nor do I have the abilities to really "help people" in a way that will completely change their life. However, I do have the ability to share love with those around me, to let them know that despite whatever situation they are in they have inherent dignity and deserve to be treated the same way I am treated. That is what I believe God calls us all to do, to love one another.
This calling to love one another is our calling to serve and be served. However, I believe that can bring another challenge, that we become too wrapped up in doing service and become lacking in our personal faith. Having grown up in one extreme, I now find myself at the complete other end of the spectrum, enthralled in service and unable to really find a balance between personal faith and service. This is where the cornerstones come in... while I may not feel all that balanced the cornerstones call us to this balance. Turning our focus on prayer and simplicity calls us to look inside ourselves, to see how we express our faith, how we live our lives as a prayer, and what we are really focused on in our lives. Then community and service call us outward, to look at those around us and how we can work for the common good and human dignity.
This week take some time and reflect on how this balance is in your life, are you too enveloped in your personal faith? Do you do service because it brings you gratification or because you seek to love others? Are you able to connect the two (faith and service)? How do you (or could you) achieve that balance?
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