Service Driven Challenge #1
Mother Teresa reminded us that “service begins in the home.” Imagine your home filled with love, compassion and forgiveness. Then:
- Sit quietly. Close your eyes. Imagine the floodgates opening up: floodgates of boundless love, compassion and transforming forgiveness. Joy and peace will not be far behind. Think of everything you do in your home and with your family as a vessel for service. For help with this all- important concept, see pages 79 – 86 of The Service Driven Life.
- Act differently. Have a meal with your family. Have two meals with your family. Have another—and watch relationships grow and bloom in good or bad times. Sit down with your spouse or significant other. Talk with him or her. Truly listen. Love. Forgive.
- Watch what happens. Joy and peace will not be long in coming. Write about it; write to us theservicedrivenlife@gmail.com about it. Talk to others about it inside your home and out (consider using the Member blog through this website). You may well be amazed at the release of love, compassion and forgiveness in your own life and in the lives of those most precious to you!
Service Driven Challenge #2
- Think about your work, the way in which you spend the substance of your days. Then think of it this way:
“The God of my understanding has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission – I have a part in His great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught.”
–Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-1890)
- Say out loud: “The God of my understanding has not created me for naught!” Say this every day for a week with your morning coffee, meditation or both. Say it again before you go to bed each night.
- Experience the meaning, empowerment and joy which will begin to accompany you to and in your place of vocation.
- If you want to take further steps in service through vocation, take a look at pages 87 – 91 of The Service Driven Life. There you will find six ways to discover your path. Spend some time with these concepts as described in the book.
Service Driven Challenge #3
Service to “others,” through neighbor and as neighbor, is in a sense the classic use of the term service. It is what most of us mean when we talk about service; sometimes in the biblical context (“love your neighbor as yourself” and “what you do to the least of these you do unto me”) and in the secular context (“do unto others as you would have done to you”).
- Take action! Make a first step. Make contact. Make a call to a mentoring program for kids at risk, to the food bank in your community with empty shelves, to the home for seniors looking for readers and performing artists. Make a call or send an email to the service organization you’ve thought about for years but have never seriously pursued. Perhaps you’re drawn to the service club whose members build clean water pumps and tanks in India and other countries around the globe. Or perhaps your heart is moved to help the service organization working toward the eradication of the wild polio virus active now in just one country on the face of the planet.
- Commit now. Commit an hour or two to a project that attracts you. If you need help with projects available to you in your community, check the Appendix in The Service Driven Life.
- Watch and write about what happens. Write about it. Write to us theservicedrivenlife@gmail.com about it. And remember, where service is, so also are meaning, empowerment and great joy—in those served and in those who serve. Experience it now!
The key to this challenge is that first step: Take action. Watch out for the kind of thinking that separates us from meaning and joy. “I don’t have time.” “If only ….” “Nothing I do is worthy.” That thinking, and those responses, are off the table for good. Now be open to the amazing places where your journey will lead you.
The key to this challenge is that first step: Take action. Watch out for the kind of thinking that separates us from meaning and joy. “I don’t have time.” “If only ….” “Nothing I do is worthy.” That thinking, and those responses, are off the table for good. Now be open to the amazing places where your journey will lead you.
In the service driven life, we find ourselves living with meaning, with power and passion, with great joy, and with the God of our understanding. That is what it means to embrace the service driven life. And that is what it means to be fully alive. Let us begin!