Living Intentionally - Disappoint Someone

Living Intentionally - Disappoint Someone

DO YOU SERVE OTHERs—either organizations or people—from your heart or your head?

If you’re serving from your heart, you know it. Your investment of time and talent doesn’t drain you—it acts like rocket fuel; you soar with a “done good” feeling. You gals who’ve figured this out can skip today’s reading. (Just kidding. Don’t you dare turn to tomorrow’s entry.) However, if you’re one of my girlfriends who feels obligated, burned out, or frustrated by your selfless service, today’s devotional reading is just for you.

Self-sacrifice is not always a noble thing. Service rendered out of a sense of expectation or obligation rather than an expression of gratitude, talent, or love is rarely pleasing either to the soul of the recipient or the do-gooder; the service can actually have the opposite effect on our spirit. I recognized this in myself as I drove reluctantly to meetings or events, dreading the next two hours of selflessness.

For this reason, I believe it is important that we ensure that every good deed, every favor, and every act of service be done from the heart—not the head. This means, of course, that from time to time, in order to live intentionally, you will disappoint someone.

I have experience here.

I have found that high achievers not only expect a lot of themselves, but others often have unreasonable expectations of them too. Moral indignation flashes across the face (or worse, spews from the mouth) of the disappointed individual because I did not __________ (fill in the blank) the way the wounded party thought I would, I should, or I could. How selfish of me! Well, yes. That’s the point.

In our world others constantly clamor for us to give more, do more, invest more, and allow more when there is little time for us, as individuals, to be more. To get ahead financially, we all know that we must pay ourselves first (in the form of savings). But few of us acknowledge that to achieve a well-balanced life, we must make the commitment to pay ourselves first in the form of time and to be extremely conscious of those we invest time with and for.

Commit everything you do to the LORD.Trust him, and he will help you.He will make your innocence radiate like the dawn, and the justice of your cause will shine like the noonday sun. (Psalm 37:5-6)

If it takes you a half hour to spin up a positive attitude for your volunteer service and a half hour to relax your forced-smile muscles once you’re home, you might be serving from the head. To live intentionally, you must serve only from the heart.