Saying you care with your actions
My friend, Eric, at “A Pilgrim’s Progress,” wrote a post about helping a neighbor get his cat out of a tree. The post is called “Serving Isn’t Easy When the Cat is in the Tree.” Eric concludes with this:
I’m glad I could help my neighbor, but it was not easy. Service has a tendency to be difficult and dirty. It is also often inconvenient. Despite this, it is certainly worthwhile.
My neighbor is not a Christian. I’m hoping that this act of service will give me the opportunity to share the gospel with him. At least he knows we care.
Eric says some very important things here. Serving isn’t easy, and it’s often inconvenient. It can be dirty. In fact, we should rarely serve people in ways that we want to serve them. Instead, we should serve people in the way that they need to be served – which may not be what we want to do.
But, like Eric says, serving is always worthwhile. Always… even when, maybe especially when, it is hard, inconvenient, and dirty.
Yes, Eric’s neighbor knows that Eric cares, because Eric told him with his actions.
I can relate to Eric. My next door neighbors were hard to get to know, until I took an interest in their dog. Call me cheesy, but we bring treats to it every now and then, and give it a dog bone for its birthday. Now those neighbors are very friendly and open to a relationship.
Andy,
Thanks for adding to Eric’s post, and thanks for your example in serving. We need more and more examples to follow.
-Alan