Day 34 continues with the topic of servanthood – thinking like a servant. This chapter really requires believing in something greater than one’s individual ego as it teachings are in direct opposition to the ego. For example: “Self-denial is the core of servanthood.”
I don’t think self-denial is the core of servanthood. But, I do think ego-denial is – abandoning the selfish and destructive desires of the ego for something other than the ego. But for what? I wrote in day 33 that we are innately compassionate, but where does that compassion come from? Where does it reside? Certainly not the ego, for which life is a zero sum game – if you win, I lose. Compassion resides somewhere else in us. Servanthood isn’t about denying the self in favor of an external and distant God; it’s about denying the ego in favor of our True Self. We don’t find joy in denying our Selves, we find joy in expressing our Selves more fully as we leave our little, insecure, fearful egos behind.
As often occurs for me as I read this book, I bristled at much of Warren’s language in this chapter while still finding many of his observations astute and succinctly put:
Unfortunately, a lot of our service is often self-serving. We serve to get others to like us, to be admired, or to achieve our own goals. That is manipulation…The whole time we’re really thinking about ourselves and how noble and wonderful we are.
If you’re giving to get, you’re doing it wrong. We’ve all done this at some point in our lives – offered to do something for someone else, or given our help when asked, with the expectation that the other person would satisfy our demand in exchange. Whether you secure their compliance or not, you ultimately lose. You lost the moment you offered “help” with strings attached. If they comply, they will resent and mistrust you; if they don’t, you will be frustrated and maybe even feel taken advantage of. At no point do either of you experience joy, only struggle. That’s how you know you’re doing it wrong – by its fruit.
When Jesus is your Master, money serves you, but if money is your master, you become its slave.
I can’t speak to the first half of that quote, but I certainly know the second half to be true. Being a slave to money has driven me to take and keep jobs that made me miserable and kept me in an unhappy marriage longer than I would have stayed otherwise. How often is money, or lack there of, or a desire to acquire more of it, or fear of losing it or of not having enough the primary factor in major decisions regarding your happiness – going to school, buying a house, having kids, traveling, pursuing a hobby, pursuing your dream?
We’ve grown so accustomed to money driving the world, being the deciding factor in everything, that to NOT do so seems insane, impossible, and unthinkable. The world seems to trust in money and in little else. Though, spiritual traditions would say that we literally create the world around us through our projections, by projecting our own (faulty) beliefs and thoughts on to the world. In other words, I see a world driven by money because I am driven by money.
But, there is another way, which Warren asserts is accepting Jesus as your master. I don’t think it need be so dogmatic or specific, but it certainly requires having faith in something greater than your ego and greater than money and trusting that, if you let it guide you, money will be taken care of. I would love to have that much faith in anything.
It is not our job to evaluate [others]…It is also not our job to defend ourselves against criticism.
I’ve written about judgment and criticism before here and here, so I won’t repeat myself, but I appreciate Warren’s reminders. His words on criticism remind me of the delightful adage that “what other people think of me is none of my business.”
Only secure people can serve. Insecure people are always worrying about how they appear to others.
This statement rang so true to me. You can see this everywhere you look – people who are unwilling to do small, petty or communal tasks (everyone’s job and no one’s job) because they’re afraid others will perceive them as weak. Once, many years ago, when I was in Russia, I was doing a tour of St. Petersberg with mostly Russians. At breakfast one morning, I grabbed some bread and passed the basket to the man next to me, who blatantly ignored me. He just sat there with a self-satisfied look on his face, staring straight ahead. His wife (or girlfriend) reached over and took the bread from me and proceeded to make his breakfast for him – basically meat and cheese on a piece of buttered bread – at the group dining table while he sat silently smirking. This guy fairly basked in his own perceived glory of having a woman publicly wait on him while he ignored her and everyone else around him; I thought he was pathetic.
At the other end of the spectrum, you have insecure people who serve with strings attached – to curry favor, rub elbows, appear selfless, what have you. They also worry about how others see them, but instead of avoiding serving to appear strong and in command (controlling), they seek to “serve” to appear kind and helpful to gather support for some ulterior motive (manipulating).
In order to be of service to others we have to die to them; that is, we have to give up measuring our meaning and value with the yardstick of others… thus we become free to be compassionate.
-Quoting Henri Nouwen
“We have to give up measuring our meaning and value with the yardstick of others…” Was ever there a more difficult (or important) undertaking?
TL;DR: No tl;dr for virtual book club posts.
