Sometimes it is easy, in the quiet of an early morning, to see my priorities as they ought to be.
As I began my day today, my prayer was filled with questions. Questions of what I should do in this or that situation, with this or that person, with this or that opportunity. Then I realized as I read and thought, there are way too many "I" pronouns in this prayer. Would something that I would read, or that God might bring to my mind, put this more in perspective?
Then this verse from Matthew 20:
"But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, "
The key word for me is "serve" or its derivative "servant", so I began to think on that as I walked An old hymn came to my mind, I guess because it had the word serve in it somewhere. A hymn written way back in 1852, Jesus Calls Us O'er the Tumult, whose last verse is:
Jesus calls us! By Thy mercies,
Savior, may we hear Thy call,
Give our hearts to Thine obedience,
Serve and love Thee best of all.
Serve God first of all, and the rest of the priorities of service will fall into place. Get the first part right and the battle is half won, but there are other parts. Another song stanza comes to mind:
Will you let me be your servant
Let me be as Christ to you
Pray that I might have the grace
To let you be my servant too
Others are out there that need to be served also, so where does that leave my prayer of earlier today?
Then I go back to that verse, especially about being "great". When I get my priorities in the right order, I can be great in the eyes of The One that matters.
Jesus first
Others second
Yourself last
I could not help but go into the Internet and listen to that moving song, one more time:
http://nicedeb.wordpress.com/2012/02/12/your-sunday-hymn-the-servant-song-2/
What a way to actually live..
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