Sportin' a 'Tude

I knew Chad's sermon for the MA kids was really meant for me, but I doubted he knew that. "I will not give the Lord a sacrifice that cost me nothing. . ." The verse inched under my skin as I sat in the plastic chair in our make-shift worship hall. I had the sneaking feeling that God had something to say about it. I began to think of all the things I could sacrifice to God. . . my future, my desires, you know. The big things. But as Chad got down and I went up with the rest of the worship team to do the last set, it hit me. I'd been complaining all week about being assigned to Mission Adventures this week. I had my excuses: we have a lot of work to do with the DTS just a few weeks away. It's an evangelism team and the role of translator feels way bigger than my skill level. I had plans for this weekend, and I was on the worship team and Saturday breakfast prep already. It would take days away from the work week next week, days I couldn't afford to loose. But I couldn't find a replacement. So here I was. And as I picked up my mic, I knew the thing God wanted. My attitude about this week of translating. It's easy to think about sacrifice when it's in the future. But what about tonight? "Okay fine. Just for You." But as I said okay, my heart began to change. And my heart changed, my whole week changed. The first day, I didn't have to do much translating. All the kids at the orphanage we were working with were out of the building, so we deep cleaned the kitchen while the guys on the team cleared a lot to be used for youth rallies later. The next day, my friend Susie went along to help translate so I got to do a lot more relationship building with the team and the workers at the orphanage. By the time my heavy translating day came on Monday, I realized I was having a lot of fun. I loved the kids on the team. I loved the orphanage and the pastor we were working with. And I had had a great example of a translator the day before and my Spanish was warmed up enough that I enjoyed translating for the kid's program. God blessed me by removing some of the things that I was insecure in. He didn't have to do that. But He did. And He didn't have to give me an amazing group of students to work with. But I was so impressed with their flexibility. Their outreach location got changed at the last minute, yet still the words I heard out of the leader's mouth over and over were: "How can we serve you? Yeah, we have a program. But what do you really need?" or "Give me the dirtiest job. I want to get it done for you." Whether it was moving rocks in the burning afternoon, or scrubbing cup after cup in the kitchen, or moving a pile of rotting trash and old Depends, I saw them stretched. And I saw them fight, and make up. I saw them serve in situations they weren't planning on. My "sacrifice" ended up being a blessing- to me. Instead of coming away exhausted, I felt refreshed. And as we learned to serve together, I made a passel of new friends. Sometimes, our sacrifice isn't the actual action itself. It's our pride. My rights. My time, right now. God knows the right things to ask for, eh? Because he knows once we get over ourselves, our lives are whole lot more of a blessing to everyone-including ourselves.