ENCOURAGEMENT FOR THE DAY
CALLED TO SERVE
I feel that I am called in this life on earth to know, love, and to serve God. Ultimately we all serve some master in our efforts to survive in a world where we need to work for money and we need money just to live and eat. Depending on whether we worship God or money, our priorities follow in the fashion of our greatest emphasis and along the course of our efforts. If we love and serve money above God, this devotion is the root of all evil.
Forty years ago I was wondering what to do with my life amid a million dollar a year movie offer, offers to box professionally and semi-professionally, a football scholarship to college, a big modeling offer, and an offer to manage my own floor of a department store. It seemed that I had the world by the tail and could take any avenue I so desired. I was, though, troubled by how all of the fantastic offers I had all lent themselves to building up my pride. I knew from past experiences that if I became proud that I would end up falling.
I had to work at the time in order to survive; and while all of those offers promised big money, I opted to work as a bus boy for an Italian Restaurant as I believed this kind of work would help me to counter my pride and get me in touch with serving others in the lowliest of jobs rather than feeding my pride and arrogance by taking the big offers.
Of all the jobs I had in my life, working as a busboy turned out to be one of my favorites because it helped me to be aware that I was called to serve God through my brothers and sisters and not called to stand on my own self-made pedestal of pride.
The experience of working as a buy boy served to help reprioritize my values for my entire life. After being retired from the United States Military due to a boxing accident at 23-years-old, I spent the next 37 years serving others through lay ministry, writing, and being a husband and father. Now I still serve as a husband and father while putting much of my time and effort into serving Christ through the written word and attempting to bear good and lasting fruit in others' lives with my writing.
I have always felt the very best in my life when I am busy building up riches in the Kingdom of Heaven and serving God by helping my brothers and sisters because I have come to believe that this service is what I was created to do.
…..Michael R. Tovrea (michaeltovrea@comcast.net) by way of “Christian Voices” (www.ChristianVoicesWorldwide.net)
Forty years ago I was wondering what to do with my life amid a million dollar a year movie offer, offers to box professionally and semi-professionally, a football scholarship to college, a big modeling offer, and an offer to manage my own floor of a department store. It seemed that I had the world by the tail and could take any avenue I so desired. I was, though, troubled by how all of the fantastic offers I had all lent themselves to building up my pride. I knew from past experiences that if I became proud that I would end up falling.
I had to work at the time in order to survive; and while all of those offers promised big money, I opted to work as a bus boy for an Italian Restaurant as I believed this kind of work would help me to counter my pride and get me in touch with serving others in the lowliest of jobs rather than feeding my pride and arrogance by taking the big offers.
Of all the jobs I had in my life, working as a busboy turned out to be one of my favorites because it helped me to be aware that I was called to serve God through my brothers and sisters and not called to stand on my own self-made pedestal of pride.
The experience of working as a buy boy served to help reprioritize my values for my entire life. After being retired from the United States Military due to a boxing accident at 23-years-old, I spent the next 37 years serving others through lay ministry, writing, and being a husband and father. Now I still serve as a husband and father while putting much of my time and effort into serving Christ through the written word and attempting to bear good and lasting fruit in others' lives with my writing.
I have always felt the very best in my life when I am busy building up riches in the Kingdom of Heaven and serving God by helping my brothers and sisters because I have come to believe that this service is what I was created to do.
…..Michael R. Tovrea (michaeltovrea@comcast.net) by way of “Christian Voices” (www.ChristianVoicesWorldwide.net)
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