Making a Life Better

I hadn't really even heard her when she said, "I have rheumatoid arthritis." I heard the words, asked her a little about it, but had I really thought about what it meant for her? I was giving her a massage, had even spent extra time on her hands, where she said it hurt the most, but it wasn't until almost halfway through the massage that I thought about the fact that she lives with chronic joint pain.

Only yesterday I had told Geoff, "I've been feeling lately like I'm not doing enough for other people."

"What do you mean?" he had said.

"Like I'm not serving other people. I feel like everything I do is just for myself or for us."

"You help people at your job."

"I know, but I get paid for that."

"Right, but you're still helping them."

I was unconvinced. It just didn't seem to matter as much as helping people compensation free. Maybe I want recognition. Maybe I want to feel like I've done something great, made more of a difference.

But then today, as I was massaging the muscles of the lady with rheumatoid arthritis, I remembered afresh that there are people all around me who are in pain. And the reason I don't see or care is because I just see me. Everywhere I look I see me. I have this chronic condition called preoccupation with self. But really, it's not a condition at all; it's a choice. And the reason I didn't really hear, really care when the lady said her joints hurt was because my heart wasn't trained to care like Jesus does. Oh, there are definitely moments of grace when I do, when I at least skim the surface of what it means to love my neighbor as myself, and all glory to God for that. But by and large, if I'm truly honest, I know that fears, insecurities, and selfishness keep me from a deep care and concern for others.

Workplaces can become sacred places when the heart begins to hear from God. And as I listened and kneaded tired muscles I realized that my job can help people in a way that makes God smile when I'm not just working, but seeking to make a life better. When I'm exercising every power of attention, and prayer, and presence, and going the extra mile for the benefit of another. And that's how I help the people around me everywhere, by forgetting myself and my agenda and being all ears and all eyes for ways that I can makes their life better. This is how I love my neighbor as myself. This is how I know I am in the light:

Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling.
I John 1:10

And what does it mean to love?

By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
I John 3:16

And laying down our life sometimes just means listening. We tell people we think they are important by the time we give them--and not just time in quantity, but time in quality, truly being with them, truly hearing, truly caring. True, to lay down a life sometimes means more. It did for Jesus. But didn't Jesus practice love all the way to Calvary's cross? Didn't he listen to his disciples, take time for the woman in the crowd who had been bleeding for years, touch a leper--outcast of society?

Maybe the reason I felt the lack, felt that I wasn't doing enough to help others, was not a quantity issue, but a quality issue. Maybe I wasn't feeling full because I wasn't giving my all, not just at work, but with the people all around and right under my nose. Isn't that the paradox of this life in Christ, of Christ in us, that fullness comes by being emptied, that life is gained by being lost? And if my giving is half-hearted,or if my body is present but my heart is elsewhere, can I expect to know the joy of a resurrected life?

I remember Suzy, a pastor's wife I was acquainted with for a while. Suzy is the type of person that, when she's talking to you, makes you feel like you're the only one in the room. She has this ability to look you in the eyes and ask how you are doing in a way that makes you feel so cared for, so loved. I remember talking with her once in the Barnes and Noble parking lot late into the night, distraught about something I was going through. She listened so patiently, asked questions when appropriate, and shared bits of her own struggles with me. She was the presence of Jesus to me in a powerful way. I want to be like Suzy. I want to be able to care more for the interests of others than I do for my own. But I know Suzy didn't get that way over night. She's spent much time in the presence of the Lord. She's learned this beautiful confidence that enables her to forget herself, not in some escape-into-ministry-to-forget-my-real-problems-way, but in a way that says I know who God is, and I know who I am as His child, and this frees her up to no longer be preoccupied with herself.

And I have a patient Teacher who is teaching me the same thing. And this thinking of others first doesn't come by gritting my teeth and trying hard not to think of self. It doesn't come by telling myself I don't matter. It comes gradually as I saturate myself in truth (something I need to do more of) and it comes as I simply practice, one thought, one choice at a time, to make life better for another. And maybe as I see these sacred lives all around me--at work, in the grocery store, at church, in my family, I'll be able to see them as the ones I am to help, to love. There won't be applause, and there probably won't be a "helper's high," but this is the way of the disciple--to see service right here and right now, to be the utmost that I can be for others wherever I am. And here is the paradox again, that as I seek to better the lives of those around me, my own life becomes better, as if I am living as I was made to live.