choosing to be small.

"I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy."
-Rabindranath Tagore

I read this quote a few days ago while reading one of my daily devotions at camp. And I'll just tell you, I can't find a better set of words to sum up the last eight weeks.

College makes your life just that: yours. It's all about you. What major you are, what classes you take, when you want to take them, where you want to live, who you want to live with... all of it. It's all your own choice, all at your own disposal. Service became something I did to show a friend I cared about them, like buying them a small gift after a hard week or taking their plate back to the kitchen for them when they were done eating. Here's the hard truth that I've noticed: college service is usually, in some way, self-serving.

Two months of camp has taught me a lot of things, but mainly it's taught me that real joy is found when you forget yourself. It's a hard and scary thing to do, but it's the best thing to do. It's where you meet Jesus.

It's made me realize that our entire society is crippled with the plague of self-service. So much so, I often have to rewire my brain entirely in doing the simplest things. When serving food to a table full of campers, I'm tempted to save the biggest cookie for myself, or heap the largest helping of mashed potatoes onto my plate. But I stop and think about Christ's self-sacrificial love and the way He served during His life on Earth, and even in His time after, and I choose to be small. When I'm feeling the urge to sit back and relax during my free period, falling back into my personally well-worn fabric of comfort, I think about how Jesus denied His own comfort more than we'll ever know, and I choose to be small.

Mark 10:45 says: "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

Romans 12:1 says: "Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God--this is your true and proper worship."

Luke 6:38 says: "Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."

​Everything Jesus does points straight back to service. If you read the Gospels thoroughly, you will see this. Every one of His efforts was purely servant-hearted: from healing the blind and the lepers and hanging out with the downtrodden tax collectors and then dying on a Cross to serve humanity with the chance to live a life on Earth.

This summer, I've learned that being in ministry for a lifetime as I dream of doing is about more than just spreading the Gospel: it's about serving, too. It's about being quiet. Being humble. Being small. And in those moments when you're unclogging the cabin toilet, or braiding a camper's hair, or standing in line to get seconds for your table when you haven't even started your first helping, you're embodying the very character of the Savior who you so desperately want to reflect to the world. You won't get the glory for unclogging the toilet or braiding the camper's hair or bringing your table seconds, because those are things that campers just expect to happen for them magically. And since we don't get the glory, we don't get the chance to stop and think about how awesome and cool and servant-hearted we are for doing those things.

Sometimes, it feels better to do big things in front of a big crowd to get that recognition we seek. It feels more comfortable, more flattering. We get congratulated and complimented. It's like training a dog--they expect treats when they perform, and when they don't get one, they beg. They whine. They fuss at you. In the tiniest of ways, we are like dogs. When we don't get the glory for serving humbly, we feel internally a lot like dogs who didn't get the treat-- we whine, we beg, we feel unappreciated or unloved.

Learning how to serve humbly and without thanks has been a cornerstone theme of my summer. There's been little to no glory, but can I be honest? I like it. I have felt closer to Jesus than I ever have before. I've been more in tune with His character, His love for His children, and His heart. I have never felt so effortlessly pulled in to love.

It humbles you in ways you'll never fully be able to describe, makes your heart more whole, and fills you up like a balloon.

Find a way to serve daily. Drop yourself and your extensive to-do list and your needs and your fears and serve. Serve, and choose to be small, and you will see Jesus pouring out onto your lap, just like it says in Luke 6:38.