The safest place to be.

#hereforgood

I read a quote once that said, “The safest place to be in life is close to Jesus.” Sunday mornings  at church are all about growing closer to Jesus. One Sunday morning back in October, we had the opportunity to be out in our community serving others instead of being at our regular church service. Be Out There Sunday. My family signed up to serve at Family Promise, a non-profit that serves the needs of homeless families in our community, doing some deep cleaning inside their resource center. We arrived that morning prepared with all of our gloves and cleaning supplies. What I wasn’t prepared for was for the families that we were serving to be there.

The boys and I quickly got to work cleaning, wiping down walls and door frames. While on my hands and knees cleaning the baseboards, some of the children of the families sat crammed together on couches in front of a little TV. I was quickly overcome with emotion, imagining what these children have to experience being homeless. The significance of my posture, of my being on my hand and knees, wasn’t lost on me. I could have been sitting in a comfortable seat in church, but I'm so glad I wasn’t. I’ll be honest; I don’t like cleaning my own baseboards let alone someone else’s, but that Sunday I cleaned those baseboards with nothing but joy in my heart. What a privilege it was to bring a small blessing to these families.

I couldn’t have been closer to Jesus in that moment if I had tried.

Being healthy is all about moderation. Too much of anything isn’t good for us. This includes being consumed by too much of ourselves and our own problems. Serving gets us out of ourselves. Serving others keeps us balanced. It reminds us that it’s not just about us. I receive so much more from life when I serve the least. We have such great examples of this at our church. The team leaving tomorrow for Chacocente is going to serve the least. The families signing up to serve meals to Family Promise are serving the least. The youth collecting a special offering this Sunday for local organizations that feed the hungry are serving the least.

In Matthew 25:40 Jesus tells us, “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” If the safest place in life we can be is close to Jesus, then it's safe to say we should all be serving others as often as we can.

Nothing puts us closer to Jesus than serving those whom He loves.

Last entry from a series of posts I am writing for my church family.