Serving While Weak in Mind or Body
On knowing limits and taking courage
One of the greatest traps of ministry is the thought, “I’ll start serving when I’m ready.” And one of the greatest reasons to think you’re not ready is when you are struggling in mind or body. Whether it’s mental health struggles or physical health struggles, most of us will go through a time when our abilities to serve will be limited by our health. And some of us will have life-long disabilities or conditions which make service feel impossible or difficult. And then the question becomes: How can I serve? I have felt this acutely with my OCD. How can I be a mentor or servant to others when I struggle to get out of bed some days? It’s a good question, worth pondering. But I don’t think God wants us to use our health struggles as a reason to opt out of service. Rather, I think we need to see them as an invitation to a wider, a more expansive understanding of what service looks like, and to see that even our suffering can be turned to glorify God. As with many things in life, if we wait until we’re “better” to begin loving others through service, we’ll never serve at all. We must start to love our neighbor today. The only question is, what does that service look like when you are held back physically or mentally? What does sacrificial living look like when you are already weak? I think we look to God’s answer to Paul when he asked God to remove the thorn from his side as the model for our lives of service through suffering: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).
