¶ Serving Requires Sacrifice

It’s been a long day, and as the final twenty minutes of it approach I found myself having not yet written today. And honestly, I wasn’t sure what to even write about. So let’s talk about why my day was long.

It’s because my day was spent serving. And while that made for a long day, it has been a rewarding day. This morning began with heading to church two and a half hours early. See, there was a training event for some of the leaders in our adult Sunday school ministry at 8:00 AM. As part of that, breakfast is included, and my wife volunteered to cook the breakfast. I acted as her sous chef before I needed to also attend said training. So we were there at 7:00 to begin making biscuits & gravy, eggs, and bacon. (Yes, my wife is an awesome cook).

After that we had our worship service and Sunday school hour as usual, but then we needed to stay and clean dishes from making that breakfast. A few others stayed and helped us, and that was very much appreciated. We left the church close to 1:00 PM, I think.

We went home where I needed to prepare the recording of today’s sermon for the podcast feed, along with a few other church-rated tasks.

And then at 5:00 PM I had the privilege as a Deacon to participate in examining a couple candidates for Pastor Ordination for church plants. It’s a task I take joy in and take seriously, and we didn’t finish until 9:00.

At this point, I’m truly exhausted. But it was energy well spent. There is sacrifice involved in serving. I’ve barely seen my son today. I’ve seen my dog even less. And while I have been around Karen for large parts of the day, it has felt like we mainly only existed around each other.

In the end, it’s one day. It’s not too much to be asked. And the time invested will likely pay off dividends for others. What I’m saying is this: you’ll have to sacrifice to serve. And it is worth it.