Keeping your emotional and spiritual gas tank filled is a necessity if you want to be a good servant.
If you have ever traveled on an airplane before, you have had to sit through the safety video. Just for the record, I always pay attention to those, not because I’m a nerd who always follows the rules, (which I kind of am), but because I was sitting next to an air traffic controller one night on a really turbulent flight (so turbulent that one of the flight attendants got sick), and he told me that most airplane crashes are survivable, but you have to know what to do and most people ignore the video. Point taken, I always pay attention to the boring, but short, video.
The video says that if there is a situation where cabin pressure gets lost, that oxygen masks will drop down from the ceiling. It then goes onto say, that if you are traveling with a small child, you are to put on your own mask first and then the child’s. Those instructions have always bothered me. They probably trouble most parents. We always put our children first. If somebody goes without oxygen, it’s going to be me, not my child.
But, the reason for those instructions is that there will likely be panic and maybe turbulence. If you quickly get yourself situated, and you can if you were watching the video, because you listened to the instructions, then you can easily help your child or anyone else nearby.
Many of us often frown on the idea of ever putting ourselves before our family or others. Putting yourself last makes you a good Christian, right? It’s an age-old myth that is very easy to buy into and get twisted up in.
Yes, we are supposed to give our time and resources in service to others. Yes, we are supposed to feed others when we can. But, if we never feed ourselves, won’t we eventually starve and have much less, if anything to give? This is called burnout and this is what many of the givers and servers often find themselves experiencing. We can get so burned out, that we just walk away from all of our acts of service. Who wins then?
The Bible tells us that Jesus himself, sometimes needed a break. “But Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer.” Luke 5:16
Jesus is the picture of the ultimate servant. He could heal people. He could cast out demons. He could resurrect people from the dead. He did so regularly with an open heart and I truly believe, just because he could and he hated to see all of the human suffering. The crowds hounded him. There were always more sick people, more questions and more need.
He often, took quiet time to pray. I think that Jesus is a good model for us in that, we need to give ourselves some space to breathe. We have to take time to take care of ourselves and our own hearts before we can help others. We need to intentionally take some quiet time for ourselves in prayer. We also may need to sleep late for a day or find time to take a walk or read a book.
We need to keep a close watch on the needle of our emotional and spiritual gas tank. When it gets low, we need to take note and fill it up in whatever way allows us to get out there and happily serve again. Sometimes that means feeding ourselves first, but if that’s what it takes so that we can help feed the multitudes, don’t you think that it’s worth it?
Have an awesome day!
Wendy 🙂