I'm not the gift

Someone recently challenged me: often Christians get caught up in trying to be Jesus to the people around us but that may not be a complete picture of what Jesus asks of us. I think trying to love like Jesus did holds a lot of truth as we try to live out the model he provided for us when he walked this earth. However, that can sometimes create an us vs. them or even a sense of authority or superiority over others. I think we have to also consider this statement he made:

"For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to me...truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me."

Well, hopefully we all hear him say this to us & not the opposite, but the point here is he is why we serve. He is the people we need to love & care for. My friend Michelle expressed this as well in her recent blog post. Here's a quote she added from Henri Nowen's book, Gracias that I found to profoundly state what I've been tossing around in my head and heart:

What then is it that we do receive in ministry? Is it the hidden insights and skills of those to whom we want to bear witness. Maybe so…but that can never be the true source of our own growth. Seeing how a person slowly becomes aware of his or her own capacities might make us happy for awhile but that is not enough for a grateful life. A grateful life is a life in which we come to see that the Lord himself is the gift. The mystery of ministry is that the Lord is to be found where we minister. That is what Jesus tells us when he says: ’Insofar as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me.” (Matt. 25) Our care for people thus becomes the way to meet the Lord. The more we give, help, support, guide counsel, and visit, the more we receive, not just similar gifts, but the Lord himself. To go to the poor is to go to the Lord. Living this truth in our daily life makes it possible to care for people without conditions, without hesitation, without suspicion, or without the need for immediate rewards. With this sacred knowledge, we can avoid becoming burned out.p. 20.

I hope to take these thoughts to heart as I live & love. I'm not the gift, Jesus is - both to me & to others.