guided service

Opening Prayer: Our Father, here I am, at your disposal, your child, to use me to continue your loving the world, by giving Jesus to me and through me, to each other and the world.  Let us pray for each other as we allow Jesus to love in us and through us with the love with which His Father loves him. (Seeking the Heart of God by Mother Teresa)

Scripture: Luke 22:24-27

Journal: Where do you find yourself in these verses?  What would it look like for you to follow Jesus’ example of servanthood?

Reflection: It is a particularization of my responsibility also, in a world too vast and a lifetime too short for me to carry all responsibilities.  My cosmic love, or the Divine Lover loving within me, cannot accomplish its full intent within the limits of three score years and ten.  But the Loving Presence does not burden us equally with all things, but considerately puts upon each of us just a few central tasks, as emphatic responsibilities.  For each of these special undertakings are our share in the joyous burdens of love.

    Thus the state of having a concern has a foreground and a background.  In the foreground is the special task, uniquely illuminated, toward which we feel a special yearning and care.  This is the concern as we usually talk about it or present it to the Monthly Meeting.  But in the background is a second level, or layer, of universal concern for all the multitude of good things that need doing.  Toward them all we feel kindly, but we are dismissed from active service in most of them.  And we have an easy mind in the presence of desperately real needs which are not our direct responsibility.  We cannot die on every cross, nor are we expected to. (A Testament of Devotion by Thomas Kelly)

Prayer

Closing Prayer: Lord Jesus, help us to have your heart and your mind when it comes to serving.  Guide and direct us.  Help us to gladly take the lowest place and gladly serve those you have called us to serve.  But help us also to never see ourselves as the answer to anyone’s need; only you can be that.  Amen.