The Purpose Driven Life: Day 33

In day 33, Warren tells us “how real servants act.”  He says that “having the heart of a servant is…important…[because] God shaped you for service, not for self-centeredness.”  He also says that “without a servant’s heart, you will be tempted to misuse your shape for personal gain…[and] as an excuse to exempt yourself from meeting some needs.”

Religion and spirituality aside, the notion of being “shaped for service” simply refers to our innate compassionate response to seeing someone (or an animal) in need.  Where we see need, we instinctively want to help.  If you doubt this, you need look no further than a child’s response to a person or an animal in need – unless the child has been severely abused or is literally sociopathic, the child will want to help someone they recognize as being in need.  This, to me, is what it means to “have a servant’s heart.”  There needn’t be anything religious or spiritual about it – it’s merely our inherent nature.

Seeing others in need can be painful, not least of all because we see our own neediness reflected back to us in their need and that scares us.  Most of us are an illness, accident or layoff away from being in need of serious help ourselves.  Just as we don’t like being faced with our own mortality, we don’t like being faced with our own neediness, either.  Feeling helpless to do anything to address the need is even worse.  Telling someone in genuine need of help that you literally cannot help them is heart-wrenching.  To witness human, or animal, need (and be powerless to help) is anguish.

It’s so agonizing, in fact, that we’ve developed ingenious ways of distancing ourselves from those in need and avoiding seeing the need altogether so as not to feel the pain inherent in our compassion.  We tell ourselves that the poor and homeless are weak, stupid, or lazy; that single mothers and adult victims of sexual assault should have known better; that drug addicts lack will power; and that those stigmatized as “criminals” get what they deserve.  We tell ourselves that those in need of help are just taking advantage of those of us who made smarter life decisions.  

Distancing ourselves in this way lets us see ourselves as different from them.  This lets us blame them for their apparent lack and pretend we are not just as vulnerable to the same predicaments.  “I’m not stupid, lazy or weak, so I never have to worry about being poor and homeless,” for example.  “Look at what she was wearing – what did she expect?” “If they hadn’t broken the law, they wouldn’t be in jail.”  “God helps those who help themselves.”  By blaming those in need for their lack, we can express anger – a feeling we’re much more comfortable expressing – at the needy instead of sorrow at the lack.  

How often do we respond to requests for help with anger and indignation, or perhaps arrogance and patronization, rather than compassion and sorrow?  And then there’s the physical distance we create to avoid the pain of bearing witness to need, locking ourselves into gated communities where net worth is the greatest virtue, financial difficulty the greatest sin, everyone has enough money to buy whatever it is they need, and no one would ever dream of asking for help and being seen as needy or lacking in any way.

So, we’re torn between our compassion and our pain, our sorrow and our fear.  Sometimes (or, perhaps, often), our fear and our pain win out as we seek to protect our self-image of being immune to such problems.  But, our fear and our pain (and our anger) are merely testaments to the sorrow and compassion that lie at our core – to our “servant’s hearts.”  The term “servant’s heart,” when stripped of its religious overtones, simply refers to our innate compassion toward others and our innate desire to help others in need.  To respond to need with anything other than compassion – to respond with judgment, blame, or accusation, or to take advantage of another’s vulnerable position for personal “gain” (no real gain can be had by doing so – this is an illusion) – is to rob ourselves of joy.  We make ourselves miserable when we look on those in need with anything other than compassion.  

Again, it’s not about sacrificing personal desires today to get a divine attaboy when we die – it’s about whether we choose to create our own personal heaven or hell right here, right now, on earth.  It’s about recognizing that, at our core, serving others brings us joy, and failing to do so brings us anguish.

If it brings us joy to serve others, why don’t more of us do more of it?  Warren makes the astute observation that we fear we’re “not good enough.”  We may feel that we can’t do enough, and so we choose to do nothing at all because what’s the point.  We may feel overwhelmed that there is so much need and so little we can do about it – our ambitions and desires to help may exceed our resources.  We may be afraid that others will ask for more than we can (or are willing) to give – if we offer an inch, they’ll push for a mile.  And the reason that’s so scary is because it hurts to tell someone in need “I’m sorry, I can’t help you,” and we may even be afraid of their reaction if we have to say no, and so we avoid having to tell someone we can’t help them by avoiding them and their needs entirely.

Warren also reminds us, though, that “servants do their best with what they have.”  No, I can’t solve the world’s problems.  I probably can’t even solve the problems of needy person in front of me.  But that doesn’t mean I can’t help them.  A kind look and sympathetic ear may not pay the rent or bills, but if it’s the help you can offer, offer it for your own joy.  And be grateful you have it to offer – not everyone does.

I definitely struggle with feeling inadequate to help, feeling guilty about not being able to help enough, and fearing I may be taken advantage of and/or waste my limited resources attending to others’ greed rather than genuine need.  This often leaves me paralyzed, unwilling even to try to help, especially when it comes to strangers. And then I wonder why the gray cloud of depression ever lurks overhead.  I grieve all the joy I deny myself in withholding my service from others, in allowing my fears to dictate my behavior.

TL;DR:  No tl;dr for virtual book club posts.