One of the hardest things that I have had to write in my life so far was my personal statement for my graduate school application. Not because I couldn’t elaborate on the fact the degree offers such incredible and extensive options but because why they should choose me to be a part of their program. Approximately 500 words kept me up at night for about two weeks as I was trying to perfect it (these blogs can do that to me too when I get close to completion.. maybe that’s why I procrastinate to write them). You see, I have a lot of reasons why I want to continue my education but doesn’t everyone who is crazy enough to apply for another degree? So what makes me more qualified than the next? Not a damn thing (sorry Grandma, just ignore this sentence, k. thx). I just got lucky.
Back when I found that science and medicine was my passion, I had this plan of going off to medical school and becoming a brain surgeon. Eventually though, I made more realistic goals of doing oral surgery instead. But funny how your heart’s desires tend to guide your path because here I am, a probie firefighter in a city that added three zeros to the end of the population count in comparison to where I grew up that just got accepted into grad school.
Fun fact: I don’t need a masters degree for my life career choice but I WANT one (don’t worry, I already know I always gotta have a million and one things to do so tell me something I don’t know). The things I want to do and achieve in my life will shape the person I want to become. I want to become better for those I serve. I want to help others to my best ability. And I want to continue to learn and educate myself. Will it make me more qualified than the next person who does the same job? Nope. Does it provide a perspective in topics I’m so excited to learn? Absolutely.
I apologize for the long introduction on what this blog is really supposed to be about on why we are called to serve but there is this stigma nowadays on where you have to justify why you live your life. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve heard “You have a Biology degree and you chose firefighting?” Like it was (and is) a sin or something. Some people will never get it and that’s alright, they don’t have to. And who knows, maybe this degree will be firefighting worthy 😉 but at the end of the day, I just wanna serve them; So Enjoy!
What comes to mind when you think of service? Military? Church? Helping the homeless? Acts of love? Kindness? Thoughtfulness? As all of these are so correct, our everyday lives include a type of service, a service to one another. Merriam Webster Dictionary defines serve as: to be a servant and to be of use. We are all called to serve but are you telling me we need to be servants even though we can’t even afford our own servants? Watching the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air growing up, who wouldn’t want Geoffrey the Butler to be in your household? So exactly how can we serve?
Serving God has always been thought of as a Christian’s number one priority (in my opinion and most of the Internets) but after reading Everybody Always, written by Bob Goff, my viewpoint has shifted. The most life-altering event occurred when God sent his only son to grow with us and then save us. Key word is WITH us. Jesus hung out with people we considered ordinary but made them extraordinary and ones to be remembered in stories. He healed people that we classified as unlovable, or an outsider, because He was WITH them and loved them with open arms. It didn’t matter if they had leprosy, was a prostitute, or a thief, He loved (and loves) each and every person regardless of their sin because *SPOILER ALERT* Jesus came to take away all sin.
“You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.”
1 John 3:5
He continues to loves each and every one of us in our lives despite the mistakes and the failures we make. A very remarkable story comes from John 13 where Jesus himself washes the feet of his disciples. He told them that they wouldn’t understand what he was doing but afterward they would. It goes on to express the fact that there was going to be a disciple that would betray Jesus but he still continued to serve them all. “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Mark 10:45
Everybody Always starts off having the VERY FIRST chapter discuss how to love creepy people, like woah, let’s just dig in to the absolute hardest areas we struggle with as human beings. It’s not just creepy people, like pedophiles, but it’s those who annoy us, who don’t see the same way as us, the ones that are hard to love. Dead serious, I read and reread this chapter six times when I first opened it because as sad as it is true, there are people I have encountered in life in which it is so hard to have my arms wide open and accept their differences, but Jesus does. Loving these people will take effort, will take courage, and will take stepping out of your comfort zone but doing this, we are actually loving God. I’m sure y’all have seen the videos where the lead pastor dresses up like a homeless man and how many people stare/avoid/walk by like he is road kill. Honestly, I am sure more people would be interested in road kill than helping someone like that in need. Maybe because it was the way he was dressed? Maybe because he smelled? I think the only way we would know is having those people explain what they were feeling or experience it ourselves. I’d like to think I’m one of the least judgmental people you’ll ever meet but we all have our faults that result in sin and I can’t say I have never not judged someone.
Matthew 7:1-5 says it best “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
I truly believe that this section of the Bible needs to be studied more in depth at a younger age as we are unceasingly being judged by society and our peers for not conforming to the standards of what might be considered normal. By no means is this a way to serve God nor is it a way to serve each other. Bob Goff says it best:
“People who are becoming love talk a lot more about what God’s doing than what they’re doing because they’ve stopped keeping score.”
I think this can be a hard pill to swallow for most, including myself, but in reality…. we keep tabs on what others are doing more and we allow our focus to be fixed on the wrong things in life. “Life isn’t a competition as we are all on different journeys trying to make it just like the others. You need to ignore what everyone else is doing and achieving. Your life is about breaking your own limits and outgrowing yourself to live your best life. You are not in competition with anyone else. Plan to outdo your past, not other people.” I’ve seen this quote a few times on social media and the meaning is beyond true. Life truly isn’t a competition against other human beings – sure I get that you don’t want Sheryl to get the promotion because you are more qualified, or the fact that Tony is faster/stronger/smarter/bigger/better than you, but that doesn’t mean to hang up your gloves and go without a fight, it means that we need to accept failure, accept the fact that someone will be better than you in something (unless you are Michael Jordan.. nobody will ever be better at basketball than him, no arguments) because we need to accept our own journey. But most importantly, we need to be happy for those that did get that promotion and achieved at the highest level because they are all in this thing we call life and we need to do a better job of lifting each other up.
“What often keeps us from loving our neighbors is fear of what will happen if we do. But God didn’t give us neighbors to be our projects; He surrounded us with them to be our teachers.”
Everybody Always, Bob Goff
With this graduate program, my hopes is to make a difference in the fire service (and go from there in the first responders community) because there are a lot of “secrets” (if we call it that) that the public are truly unaware of when it comes to being a firefighter. Can you imagine that the ones that save your life or your family member’s during medical and fire calls, are the ones with the highest risk of getting a mental illness from continual exposure to death and destruction that can result in suicide? In 2017, suicide rates were higher than line of duty deaths for both police officers and firefighters. They don’t do this job because they have to, they do what they do because they want to; they want to serve you. Although what I believe to be my life’s purpose of serving is what might be considered on-the-job risky, that doesn’t discredit those who have other careers and interests. Think about it: Each and every job serves others; whether that be a school teacher educating the next generation, a mechanic at a body shop fixing the vehicle that takes you from point A to B, a plumber making sure there will be no future water damage in a newly built or renovated home, a cashier clerk ringing up your groceries for your house of five, a vet, a trucker, an engineer, an arborist, a pastor, a farmer, a pilot, even those “homemade” entrepreneurs selling you ItWorks; you get the point because the list doesn’t stop there- it’s essentially every job we have created on Earth. There is no coincidence because God did that intentionally.
The purpose of creation is a relationship with the Lord and in the community.
In the Bible, Jesus is asked what the most important commandment is and his reply in Mark 12:30-31 is “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with allyour strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Serving others is one of the easiest yet hardest things we can do in our life. It’s the easiest because we do it every single day without realizing it but it becomes the toughest for those who are so ungrateful and hard to love. Serving God is the same way. We do good things in life that deserve a gold star but then there are times of temptation where we lack a giving and loving heart. Serving God doesn’t only happen in church and it’s not scored in tithes. Let’s make this year more about others and less about ourselves. Let’s make this year a year to serve where the goal is to make it contagious. How are you going to serve?
“We couldn’t love God if we don’t love the people He surrounds us with.”
Everybody Always, Bob Goff
Also, I do realize that it has been quite awhile since I last posted and after having a few friends ask when I was going to write again, I took it as my way of being able to serve you with something so meaningful in my life and apologize for not writing sooner. I have wanted to write about this topic for some time and finally got around to it. God also happened to place a few books in my reading list and circumstances to help guide me through this post. “Jesus tells us to bring what we have to Him and He will make something amazing out of it – let Him decide what He’ll do with it.” -Bob Goff
- Link for more information on First Responders being 5x more likely to suffer depression and PTSD can be found here
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