Ah, yes, I'm back! It's nice to be home, and sitting here blogging! ;)
Where have I been? Well, I've been away with my class for 2 weeks, helping out people who live in towns like Broken Hill and Swan Hill, and we also helped a farmer who owns a MASSIVE sheep farm. Surprisingly enough, though, during the 2-day stay we had at Turlee Station (the sheep farm), I didn't see a single sheep!! :) Ironic, isn't it? Apparently there were 7000 sheep and 4000 lambs, but I didn't see any!
Anyway, being away for that time, and helping so many people (which we got in that town's local paper for!) made me realise how much a couple of hours of weeding, or mowing, or cleaning up means to some people. We just did the little jobs that they'd never get around to doing, the ones that took us about 2hrs, and would have taken them a week. But even though we didn't do anything really amazing, the people we did it for were so thankful, and so appreciative. It was like we'd just handed them a million dollars, instead of just weeding their backyard. (well, maybe they weren't QUITE that excited, but they were pretty happy!)
Don't worry, I'm not trying to say "oh, look how good my class is, look what we've done" or anything. I'm just thinking, before I went on my Tour (my class trip to help people), how much did I think about helping people or how much they appreciate me helping them. Sure, I helped people. Sure, they said thank you. But I never stopped and thought about exactly how I could help people more. I didn't often step outside of my little "me, me, me" world, to help people. I did, but not very often. Any why should we help people? So that they can owe us something in return? Nope. So we can feel good about ourselves when we've finished? Nope.
Well, why? To show God's glory in everything we do? To help the people that God created? To love our neighbours as ourselves? YES, YES and YES!!! Those are the reasons! To reflect the Light of Jesus, to accompany our faith with deeds (check out James 2:14-26), to love our neighbours as ourselves (Matthew 22:39), and to honour God, our Heavenly Father, our Dad. Remember, when you're serving others, you're serving Christ (Matthew 25:31-46).
So that's what I've been thinking about recently. Maybe you'd like to think about it, too. How can YOU serve other better? Why are you serving others? For your own personal gain? Or for God's?
Have a lovely God-serving day.
Love, Bess x
