“Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, ‘Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all’.” Mark 9:35

I’m preparing to go to Greece with my wife in the next few weeks. We are a part of a team that will help lead worship and encourage missionaries who are gathering for a conference. Traveling over seas always is an adventure that offers the possibilities of new experiences, expanded perspective and the excitement of new places and people. It also can press into the places of control and comfort that I so often manage in my life. I know this from personal experience.

Around 1987 my wife and I were asked to come to Kenya to share some music and to speak at a conference. The group that invited us were indigenous Africans who shared a common ministry. They contacted us about six weeks before their conference, which left us very little time to consider their proposal. As a result my initial impulse was to say no, but my wife pointed out to me that the window of time that they were asking about remained strangely open on our calendars with no other commitments. As a result, we prayed (fairly quickly) and trusted that the Lord would provide the needed resources to go. He did provide and we set off on a journey across the world.

The conference was held at a school in a city two hundred miles north of Nairobi, Kenya. People had come from all over Kenya, by whatever means they could to be there. They set up tents, slept out under the stars, shared accommodations and generally did whatever was necessary for the week of the conference. Our accommodations were the best they had but unlike any I had ever experienced. There was very little, if any, in door plumbing which meant showering was replaced with a sponge bath in a shower stall. Every morning when I woke up there were two large containers of water sitting in the shower area. One container held cold water and the other held hot water. I would rise and use these to get cleaned up for the day. It took a bit of getting used to, but eventually I had my system for showering down. It was not as convenient as hot and cold running water from a showerhead, but it effectively did the job. During the experience my skewed attitudes of entitlement surfaced along the way. I’m not sure I was really aware of them but in retrospect they were there and as a guest in a foreign culture I had certain expectations. Finding a sponge bath as opposed to a shower with hot and cold running water was one of them. I swallowed my pride and adjusted and tried not to think about it.

What was interesting was that, in my total self-absorption regarding my right to a shower, I hadn’t thought to ask how the container of hot water in the shower area had come to be. The epiphany occurred near the end of the conference. I woke up to those large containers of hot and cold water and realized that they had not just magically appeared. As I inquired further about what now was the mysterious appearance of hot and cold containers of water, a small man was pointed out to me. He was dressed like a rural African might be dressed and he was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall with his head bowed. I was told he was praying there for those at the conference and for the work of God in their lives. I was also informed that he would arise several hours before the dawn to light and stoke a fire upon which a large kettle of water, which he made many trips to the river to fill, would be brought to a boil and then carried to the shower area for my use. It was the ministry to which God had called him for the week.

I was embarrassed and convicted by my own attitudes of entitlement, that sense that I deserved better, and prayed for a heart more like this little man’s, for He had discovered something of greatness that I had missed. Here was a man who joyfully chose the last so that others might receive something better. I wanted to be treated like someone great, whereas He lived out the greatness of the kingdom of God in His willingness to serve.

I still struggle daily with trying to cling to what I think I’m entitled to, but Jesus keeps reminding me that the greatest will be slave of all. As we travel to Greece it is my prayer that I will embrace the attitude of a servant over the attitude of a celebrity. May the Lord’s call to come as a servant reshape your thoughts on greatness as you continue your journey with Him, and may His grace transform your attitudes and actions as you embrace His kingdom way. As you reflect, may this song encourage your heart of listening.