Within twenty-four hours of moving to Georgia, God blessed me with a job at O Charley’s Restaurant and Bar as a server. I’ve never served before but I have worked in the food industry as a crew member at Wendy’s fast food in my hometown. Serving is different from anything I’ve done before. You are catering to the needs and wants of individuals, couples, and groups all spread out among multiple tables. It’s fast paced with constantly changing variables and tasks that need to be met in an orderly fashion and in a quick timeframe.
This job can be frustrating, annoying, time consuming, draining, exhausting, and seriously under-appreciated. Though, as with all things in life, it really depends on the lens in which you choose to view your required tasks. I can allow myself to be annoyed at the lady that asks for something new every time I come to the table. I can get frustrated that I just got double or triple sat or that orders are backed up in the kitchen. I can allow my co-worker’s attitudes and negative comments and complaining to get me down and make me hate customers, management, and fellow workers.
Yet, there is a better path. One that is full of fun and joy. I can chose to slow down and sing a little. Whenever I find myself being overwhelmed by how busy I am and how needy people can be, I simply slow down. I remember that this is just a job and these are just people, and we’re all just here revolving around food. I remember that Jesus is here and He is the most important thing not only in my life, but in the lives of the people I’m serving.
I’m in the Bible belt, so the majority of the people I serve profess to be Christian and go to church, but how many of them truly know Jesus and have a personal relationship with the Father, living out their lives by the Holy Spirit? In my daily action I must choose to live out my life so that I may be an instrument of the Father. I have to choose to seek the Kingdom of God so that it might come to the world through me. I have to choose everyday whether or not I’m going to allow the enemy to control my thoughts and emotions and ruin the day or if I’m going to let the Spirit live out through me. Will I be the light of Christ for the people I’m serving?
Then there are my co-workers. Most of them are far from the Lord, some of them know Him but aren’t in a relationship with Him, and I know at least one professes to be a Christian and I must believe Him by His passion. I have to hope that I can be Christ to each one of my co-workers and shine against the culture that is in that place. I have to be servant who shines different from the rest and makes people question why I act the way I act, to believe the story I tell them of being a Christ follower. I have to be the one who shows them what joy and love there is in following Christ and knowing your true Father in heaven. I have to ruin and correct their misconceptions of the true Church and what it means to be a Christian. I have to serve and die to self so that they may know the one who died for them.
Over the next five months I will constantly be praying and discovering how I can best be a missionary in the workplace. I’ll be looking for new ways to love those I serve and those I serve with. I know CGA will be teaching me new things and I’ll be able to activate that learning in the workplace, but I also expect the job to teach me with a level of experience that only the lowly server could understand.
Matthew 20:25-28 says, “Jesus called them together and said, ‘You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
This is my prayer for the next five months. That even in the victory of Jesus over my life and the world, I will not lord it over those I come in contact with, but that I will humble myself in that victory to serve. I pray that I will not expect to be served by others, but I will inhabit a spirit of service for others. That I will live out my life just as Jesus the Anointed One did and give up my life for others. I pray I will give up my comfort, time, and life so that others may know the same joy I have realized in Christ.
How can you live more missionally in your job? What can you do to serve others, just as Christ came to serve?
