Friday Devotion - Written by Hannah

Today's devotion has been prepared by Hannah Creech:

A couple weeks ago during band camp, there was a representative from the bone marrow registry who had set up a table in Brooks and was trying to convince people to sign up to be on the donor list. I figured, ‘Why not?’ and filled out the sheet. As a result, I got a call asking me to complete a short phone survey concerning the registry.  As I was completing this survey yesterday, I was asked a couple of questions that got me thinking. One of the questions asked, ‘On a scale of 1-5, with 1 being very willing and 5 being not willing at all, how willing would you be to put in a time commitment of 30-40 hours over the course of 4-5 weeks for paperwork, blood tests, and giving marrow?’  I found myself actually thinking ‘Man, that’s a pretty big chunk out of my time.’ There are people out there dying because they need bone marrow and I was mentally complaining about a few hours out of my chill time.  I don’t know about all of you, but I constantly have to remind myself to be less selfish and to think about others for a change. I admit that I personally tend to go through the motions, but not actually sacrifice a lot of my personal time for service to others.  

 

The bible warns us against this in Philippians 2:3-4:

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vein conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.”

 

I come to church and I am a pretty active member of LCM, but how much do I actually try to help other people?  Pastor Chris mentioned on Wednesday that people who are active in church groups are actually less likely to go and do service projects by themselves without a group of their friends.  I definitely see that in my life.  This semester I am going to make it a personal goal to be better about thinking about others and trying to do a little more to help out, even if it does take a little time out of my schedule. This year, LCM has made a goal of trying to be more service oriented, so I just wanted to share my little aspiration and invite all of you to join in!