struggle

I Can Serve You Here

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imageWhen customers enter our ChickFilA, they are greeted and then we add, “I can serve you here” to indicate that our register is open.  As I take orders, fill drinks,and chat the conversation is surface stuff.  In a small city like ours, it is easy to assume that our customers live and/or work in our community, have ordinary lives with ordinary circumstances, and move on.  But when I really have time to listen, it is amazing what I hear.  Just today I served a woman and her daughter on their way to see the other daughter, who was having a baby and having complications, several teenagers who were stressing about their standardized tests today, a young man who was having a big job interview, and an 8 year old who is still in 1st grade because “I got held back”.  There was also a newly single mom whose husband just walked out on her, and a new mom of a new doctor in town who is still feeling lonely and missing her family back home terribly. All of these needed food, but they also needed a human touch and a listening ear.

I came away from today SO wishing that we had at least one “register” at every church where someone was standing there saying, “I can serve you here!”  When we go to church week after week, and see so many of the same people, it is very hard to stop and really listen to what is going on with each other.  We make a lot of assumptions about other people’s lives based on what we are experiencing, and in doing that we miss a lot of opportunities to connect with each other and minister.  And that is also, unfortunately, when we are the least like Jesus. He made it a point to look beyond the surface, and to meet the deepest needs of those He met. I want to be like that.  As the quote above says, I am one – and there is a lot that I can do to help those around me.  May we all begin to make that our goal!

Step Right Up!

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We are a society of people that know what we want – at least in the fast food world.  Here’s a couple of examples:  “I’d like a chicken biscuit, but on a bun.  Add pickles, and no butter on the bun.  Diet coke, light ice.”  Or another: ” Two sausage biscuits, sausage extra done, biscuit dark brown.  And a chicken burrito, minus peppers and onions, and oh yeah, in a bowl – don’t like the wrap”.  “Half sweet tea, half unsweet, splash of lemonade”. In other words, anything and everything is possible, within our menu, and we can cater to most people’s wishes. And most customers are not shy about asking – they are completely comfortable making their requests known, even if we can’t fulfill all of them.

I wish that I would always approach God that way in my prayer life.  There are times that I am free and confident when I pray, but…there are also times that I struggle.  When I have “regular menu” items – prayer requests for the sick, wisdom for an issue in my life, repentance of sin – I do rather well.  And I am usually assured that God is listening and will do His will concerning my petitions.

However, when it comes to “special request” items, I don’t have the same boldness that my customers do.  I believe there are times that God wants to use me in the BIG things, or times that He has laid a BIG idea or dream in my heart, and then I stutter and stammer trying to pray about those!  I mull it over, think of all the reasons that it might be silly, or me and not God, or reasons that He will probably say no.  I believe I do this at times out of fear – fear of what the request will require of me if He says yes!  Or fear of how a “yes” will cause me to move out of a comfort zone, and into the unknown.  Sometimes it’s a lack of faith in my own abilities and talents – like God would certainly choose someone else for that dream.

Whatever the cause, I want to stop.  I want to become more like those that I wait on every day, and step right up to the counter (throne) of grace and my Heavenly Father, and ask!  My prayer is that you would follow and watch Him change our world for His glory!