Cultivating a servant's heart

Lust.  Gluttony.  Greed.  Sloth.  Wrath.  Envy.  Pride.

And if I had to pick just one of those seven deadly sins to work on it would have to be pride, I'm afraid.  Which is why cultivating the heart of a servant is something I have been working on for a long time now.  I wish it were easy, or at least easier.  I see a lot of people out there who do a much better job of it than I do, but then again I see small steps towards improvement in my own life, especially so far this year.

What does it mean, to cultivate a servant's heart?  Let's take that phrase apart.

Cultivation

When we think of cultivation we think of crops, naturally, because to cultivate something implies intentional action.  Imagine wild carrots growing in a natural clearing; they have seeded themselves through natural processes.  Animals have eaten them, some have died from too little or two much of some natural element such as water or light.  They have struggled to produce flowers and to grow.  It has been a hard life for our wild carrot because those things which would have helped it in it's growth have been absent.  Now imagine a cultivated carrot.  The soil has been prepared, the plant has been cared for and given optimal conditions for growth and the fruit reflects that attention.  It is thus with our hearts. To cultivate in a spiritual sense is to do what we would do with the domestic carrot - prepare the soil, fertilize the heart with what it needs to grow, tend it faithfully and reap the rewards.

Servitude

If we are cultivating a servant's heart, what does that mean?  Well, a good servant will serve in four ways; they will serve immediately, they will serve cheerfully, they will serve thoroughly and they will serve consistently.  When their master requires something of them you can judge their aptness as a servant by asking how they did on those four scales.  Imagine an assistant in a large corporation who is asked to show a client around the offices.  If that assistant quickly accepts the task, is friendly and open to the client, does their job to the best of their ability and can repeat that performance with a future client, then you would say that that assistant was a good assistant.  But if one of those factors is missing there will be a large hole in their performance, won't there?  Can you picture the last time you had bad service at a store?  Chances are the bad service could be linked to one of those four traits, can't it?  Was the cashier rude?  That's a lack of cheerfulness.  Was she on the phone and wouldn't get off to ring your purchase through?  That's a lack of immediacy.  Our servitude has an excellent model in Christ, who was the ultimate servant.  He fulfilled His tasks on all four of those fronts and added a fifth, love.  To be a servant as He was a servant, then, is to love your master and your fellow servants above yourself, always above yourself.

Hearts

The term 'heart' is a homonym - a word that has more than one meaning.  There is the biological heart that beats in us, and there is the spiritual heart, which is the centre of us.  Much as the biological heart keeps us alive by holding our blood and pumping it out to the rest of the body, so our spiritual heart is what we would refer to as the 'holding place' for those elements of our faith and life that have the most importance for us.  The Holy Spirit woudl dwell in our spiritual heart, we would take the words of the bible and hide them in our spiritual heart and we would keep people for whom we pray close to our spiritual heart.  So if we were to do work on our hearts, it is that spiritual centre that we mean.  To relate something to your spiritual heart is to give it the utmost importance, for what can be closer to us than the place where God lives in us and we keep our dearest desires?

So, what do we have here with that breakdown?  We have a phrase that can be elaborated from 'cultivate a servant's heart' to this:

"To intentionally make the center of my being where God dwells within me to reflect my desire to work cheerfully, thoroughly, consistantly and with a sense of urgency to remake my life in Christ's image, loving Him and all people as He taught me."

I'll need another whole post to talk about my trials with this, but today I've had plenty of opportunity to cultivate my servant's heart in caring for a sick baby.  So it's off to bed for this mama, I have a feeling it's going to be a rough night.  Hear's hoping your servant's heart is cheerful.