Dear Lord, Do I really have to wait those tables?

One of the most popular question I find myself asking God as I go through every process of training is this- “Do I really have to wait those tables?. No one really wants to be the waiter especially not me, everyone wants to be served. Isn’t it nice to be served? You know, when you go to a nice restaurant and you have a great waiter that really takes care of you? Makes you feel good to be served. Usually, we loved being served. We go to the salon, car wash, spa and all to be served. And you know, there’s really nothing wrong with that on occasion. But when we start to think that our life is about being served, then we’ve got Christianity backward! Christianity is about serving God and others – not the other way around. Look at what Jesus said about it.

“Whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” Matthew 20:26-28

Imagine how I felt when I discovered that being called of God as a minister can be likened to being a waiter. Yes, a waiter. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with being a waiter, if it’s a passion or what you love. However not many people want to answer to other people.   If you do not have a desire to serve people, then you can’t be a waiter for God. You need to understand what it means to wait. It does not mean to stand around doing nothing, waiting for someone or something. Rather, the root of the word means “to look to,” “to occupy oneself with,” and “to bind to.” In other words, to occupy oneself by looking to the needs of another by binding oneself to his or her service. Binding myself to the service of another was definitely not how I planned my life, but hey that was what I was created for, so I better just get to learning the art of binding.

Is it difficult? At times. Is it fulfilling? Definitely!

Imagine how Philip, Stephen and the other 5 men  felt when they were called to wait tables. These were men full of the Holy Ghost. Sometimes I wondered whether they felt out of place, but I know otherwise because Stephen went all out because he knew serving tables was all about being an ambassador for God. He did great wonders and miracles among the people, just by yielding to wait tables.  Does it matter if you have to wait the tables while someone else faces the ministry of the word? One of the common temptations you can have especially as an associate in ministry is to FEEL stuck waiting tables forgetting that it is all about what God has called you to do. If God has told me to wait those tables, well I better give it my best because therein lies my relevance and reward. Does it matter whose table it is? No , it doesn’t. What matters is that God sent me, and I am just going to do as he says.

For me, I have learnt that waiting is both a service and a pruning process. During the time I got a conviction on what God will have me do, I learned a major lesson from my spiritual Father that I can never forget. He said “Every man that must bear fruit will be pruned by God, the pruning isn’t always convenient or sweet, however the end is always fruitful’’. I held on to these words and it has kept me going ever since then. There are times that God will have you wait a particular table until you learn something and move on to a higher one. That particular table isn’t always sweet, sometimes you may have to clean up after a lot of people, you may have to go back and forth receiving orders and being yelled at, there are even times you will make mistakes and have to go do it right. All these are to an end, to be better at serving people, the better you get, the more tables are committed into your hands. One of the lessons I have learnt waiting is that, it is not just about serving others but also about whether or not we are changed when we serve. What I have noticed is that most of the time when I allow myself to serve outside of where I feel comfortable and safe, amazing things happen to me.

I hope you were able to hold on to one or more lessons from this,  I am going to be sharing more on my waiting tables experience over the next few weeks… Do subscribe to get updates on my journey as a waiter for God.