Serve Where You Are Competent (April 9, 2006)

Have you ever been asked to serve in an area you stunk at?

I have. When I was in seminary the associate pastor of my church had the bright idea of organizing a day of sport games in the park for kids. Then he made the mistake of putting me and two other seminary interns in charge of it.

The other interns were great guys, but neither had kids of their own and neither had a clue about how to work with them. And none of us knew anything, anything at all, about putting together a day of fun and games in the park. That would have been o.k. if, despite our inexperience, at least one of us had good instincts for that work. None of us did, and the thing flopped. The kids wound up scattering around the park, and I think more than a few just wanted to go home.

That incident has become a life template experience for me: it instructs me in the danger of hammering round people into square holes. Round people don't fit in square holes. When you stuff them in there they get annoyed and even the holes get frustrated. When King Saul sought to cover David with body armor for his fight with Goliath, the young man wisely demurred. "I just need my sling," he said (or something like that). He knew what fit him and what did not.

After Melissa talked about her mission work in Taiwan on Sunday, it struck me how well-suited she was to the job of running a VBS, making friendly contacts and conducting home Bible studies. The joy of a good fit shone from her face. On the other hand, when a married father of two told me he might go to Mexico for a short-term mission trip, I raised a red flag. "You speak no Spanish," I said, "and your duties will consist of...handing out tracts while an evangelistic troupe does street drama? Why exactly do they need you for this?" This man has a professional skill that I'm sure could be put to use somewhere. But from what he told me, the Mexico trip would demand nothing more of him than what a child could perform. My fear is that, unless he is given opportunity to exploit his skills, he might wind up as frustrated as those emergency personnel who went to areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina and were given the job of handing out fliers.

But I could be wrong. One of the things I wish I were better at is being right more often.

May God enable you to serve him in the things you're good at, sidestep the things you stink at, and perform just enough of those "jobs that anyone can do" (Jesus washed feet!) to keep you humble without causing you to think, "You know, maybe my service time could be better spent somewhere else."