For the past few weeks, God has been gently telling me to do something. Something I didn't particularly want to do. Something that would cause me continual pain--but something that I knew would be ultimately to His glory. Something that would probably break my heart into a thousand pieces.
Understandably, I didn't want to. I didn't want to suffer pain for the sake of someone else, someone I didn't particularly like. This issue has been causing me pain for a while now. It's been sort of a continual misery to me and I have hated being helpless about it.
Over spring break, after a moment of closure with one of my closest friends, I decided to guard my heart against it. I imagined my heart, I imagined all of the pain, and I visualized locking it away. Kate Voegele has a song called "We the Dreamers" and one of the lines is, "So I'll buy myself a cheap apartment and I'll buy my heart a secret compartment." That's what I was going to do. Every time the issue made my heart hurt, I imagined myself walling up my heart again. Bricks, barbed wire, cement blocks, just locking it away so the pain couldn't get to it. I even attributed the idea to God and thanked Him for it. Eventually, I got to a point where even when the issue was at its strongest, I was emotionally numb to it. I'd stopped caring.
It was such a release not to have this pain pierce my heart. But it was a false release. I learned that tonight.
Basically, at house church, in no uncertain terms God told me to knock it off. He told me that He still wanted me to do the thing that I did not want to do. He wanted me to make an effort at it. He wanted me to put my whole heart into it, not lock it away.
This upset me. I resigned myself to it, but that didn't stop me from being upset with God. I railed at Him on the ride home. Why? Why do you want ME to do this? Why can't someone else? Why can't someone else, who won't be hurt, who won't be pained do this instead of me? Why do you INSIST on me feeling this pain?!
I even added in a very nasty voice, "And all I get as an answer is silence. As usual."
I stomped into my house, slumped into a chair, and popped open my computer. Scrolling down the facebook page, I noticed someone from my old church had posted a Skit Guys video. I don't know why I clicked it. But I did.
I wasn't even paying full attention to it. But right at a very timely moment--I heard the bit talking about where Jesus knelt before his disciples and washed their feet.
And then I burst into tears.
Because I got my answer.
Christ was a servant to us. His life was a life of pain. When he washed his disciples' feet, he wasn't just washing their feet, he was washing my feet. He was washing Pilate's feet. He was washing the man who hammered nails into his palms' feet. Christ's life was all about servanthood. And now, God wants to teach me to be a servant.
This isn't an easy task. It certainly wasn't for our Lord. And I don't exactly know what will come of it. But I know, right now, here in this place in my life, God wants me to learn how to be a servant to others. To humble myself and wash others' feet--even people I don't like, even people who inadvertently hurt me. All I can do, is pray for His strength and that Christ may create in me a servant's heart.
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