SERVICE

By Larry Doyle Crenshaw

MeditationsInLight.blogspot.com

For many years I was involved in humanitarian work in parts of the world ravaged by man-made and natural disasters. Regardless of country or culture I was frequently touched and humbled by countless examples of selfless service – often performed by those who themselves needed much help.

Through the ages service to one another has been understood to be intimately connected to service to God.  After all, Heavenly Father wants the best for His children and what better way to teach them and provide for them, than by encouraging them to serve one another.  Such service has the potential to build God-like character in those who give service and those who receive it.  Givers of service sacrifice time, effort, and/or means.  Receivers sacrifice pride. Both share in the blessings that sacrifice teaches and brings into the soul.   In the process, a divine paradox occurs in that the line of demarcation between giver and receiver begins to blur – givers become receivers of what Paul calls “the heavenly gift.”  Receivers can be transformed into consecrated givers as they move from poverty to prosperity.

In an ever-darkening and more selfish world, acts of pure love and service appear to be diminishing.  It’s ironic that service projects in communities, once common-place, now are the subject of news articles as if these were extraordinary events.  I am concerned that they are becoming so. I live in a community where community socials, activities, barn-raisings, house building, crop harvesting, prayer vigils for the sick, community home-comings, and similar social events are rather common-place. These activities are part of our “Southern Culture,” but derive more fundamentally from the deeply rooted Godly covenants of our ancestors.

In the last few years we have heard many divisive and derisive words about how best to care for the poor.   In the race to find a position on the polar extremes, many advocate unprincipled positions on each end.  The Lord’s way of ministering to the poor and the needy is neither conservative nor liberal in the political sense.  When poverty is only defined in secular, temporal terms, it loses it meaning and distracts us from applying effective remedies.  Often, the greatest poverty is the poverty of ideas and beliefs for those taught the traditions of parents and ancestors that were neither helpful nor correct. 

Remedies must include adherence to principles of work, defined as temporal and spiritual effort within each of our unique capacities.  Thus, virtually everyone, regardless of limitation, is capable of work – either temporal and/or spiritual.  Mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual effort qualifies as work and our work in helping others within our capacities also qualifies as service.  This is the Godly covenant of service of which we speak and, in which both giver and receiver are blest.

 “Service” is a meditative verse based on the counsel and instruction of King Benjamin, an ancient Israelite King who lived in the Americas 124 years before Christ.  Three years prior to King Benjamin’s death, he called his people together and encouraged them to love God and enter into a covenant with Him, to anticipate the coming of Christ, and to serve one another. There is a remarkable promise contained in his words – in that if we serve one another, and particularly, the poor and the needy – we shall retain a remission of our sins.  It is perhaps timely that we do so with greater love, focus, and frequency.

“Service” can be found at MeditationsInLight.blogspot.com

Service

And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God… Behold, ye have called me your king; and if I, whom ye call your king, do labor to serve you, then ought not ye to labor to serve one another?  I say unto you that if ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another—I say, if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants.

Book of Mormon   Mosiah 2: 17-18, 21

Service to God and service to man

Are bound together in a Godly rule

That we must learn and understand

While enrolled in this mortal school

Even though we might be King

We should labor mightily to serve

But why is it such a difficult thing

For you and me to observe?

Vanity and pride do get in the way

Of living this law to a great extent

And we keep God’s blessings at bay

When we refuse to obey and repent

He who lends us breath each day

Commands that we be dedicated

To serving others along the way

For unto such were we created

Profound is God’s service to you and me

Though we serve Him a billion years

Unprofitable servants we would be

And our debt forever in arrears

Larry Doyle Crenshaw