Duty Meets Delight

Duty, obligation, commitment, and obedience.

Don’t those sound like loathsome terms to our 21^st century ears?  We prefer delight-oriented tasks, learning, serving, and everything else we can possibly choose.  

Over the holidays, I started watching the first two seasons of Downton Abbey – a delightful time killer if ever there was one.  It’s given me fuel for thought that even enters my dreams at night.  I would love some international perspective on this whole idea of duty - and not the kind we pay to bring in our electronics at the airport or border crossing.

Downton Abbey portrays the whole idea of household help as a non-optional institution that benefits both the servant and the master.  Many of us live in third world countries where we are expected to hire local gardeners and maids in keeping with our “position in society” (as foreigners), whether we particularly need them or not.  Some of us are conversely placed in the position of serving whether we feel like it or not.

Presently I am in both positions at once.  I have a gal who has helped in our home since the children were little, and now she is like a member of the family, and my kids would never dream of letting her go.  I’d like to believe that Edith works for us with both a sense of duty and delight, but maybe not both simultaneously. 

Meanwhile I find myself serving in ways that I would never particularly choose, just because “someone has to do it.”  Sometimes there is joy in the deed, but sometimes, not so much.

Daily I struggle with the conflict between duty and delight.  So far I’ve not reconciled either.  Ideally, I think, delight should come naturally from service done “as unto the Lord.”  When I find myself begrudging the time, energy, and sometimes money required by my service, it is only because my attitude is out of whack.

As a friend, please don’t encourage me to quit.  Don’t tell me that I don’t have to live under a weight of “ought, should, and must.”  The fact is that I sometimes must obey, regardless of how I feel about it.  We do each other a huge disservice when we suggest too quickly that maybe "the grace of God is lifting" (whatever that means), and we no longer have to continue in a certain ministry.

At the same time I’ve been bingeing on Downton Abbey, I’ve been reading a biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  Bonhoeffer has inspired me to listen more to the Holy Spirit and to walk in obedience to His Word and His voice in 2013, no matter how I may feel about it on any given day. 

My goal is to seek joy in daily service and sacrifice.  Do you think that's a worthy ambition?

Sometimes we simply should do our duty, fulfill our commitments, and obediently do what we know we must.  Our generation needs to rise up and combine the old-time missionary commitment with the modern joy and delight that is only possible when we do things with a right heart.

It's a fine balance, trying to not make a god out of either duty or delight.

How about you?  How are you facing the rest of 2013?  Any resolves that might encourage the rest of us?  Any lessons learned from Downton Abbey, if you’ve seen it?

IRL*  I’m happy to be blogging again after a little break!  Hope you'll join me here every other Wednesday or so.

Fruity Chewy Candy and other Blessings

Living outside the U.S. we get accustomed to that inconvenient truism that you can’t always get what you want.  Every trip to the grocery store demonstrates this.  You may want canned pumpkin, molasses, and apple cider now that it is autumn, but it’s not likely you will find them in your particular corner of the world.  Am I right?

Last week I was in an afternoon slump, and for some reason I had a hankering for something sweet that wasn’t chocolate.  I know, weird, huh?  Starbursts or Laffy Taffy or Skittles would be just the thing, as I told my husband.  Too bad those are not available here.

Would you believe that just two days later, my dh* returned from a trip to Sam’s Club in the city with all of the above?  It was so unexpected!  In twenty-six years, I have never seen a miraculous appearance of Laffy Taffy outside the U.S., but there they were.

Do you think God might surprise us like this just so we will praise and glorify Him?  I wonder.  Of course I wouldn't think to pray for something so frivolous as fruity chewy candy, but God knew of my desire and blessed me without my having to ask.  I love that.  It doesn't always work that way, though, does it?

One of the lesser dangers in living so far away from family and friends back home is that we become too self-sufficient. God could easily choose to meet our needs and desires (care packages, anyone?) through the body of Christ, but we are too proud to ask.

It goes back to the old support-raising dilemma.  Do we tell people of our need, or do we make our needs only known to God?  That’s a whole ‘nuther topic, but I wonder if it doesn’t hold the key to our reluctance to ask for things.  If you’re like me, you’d rather be surprised by God’s blessings than to expect them.

Last month I agonized for days over a box of prayer cards that were stored in my dmil’s attic in Ohio.  I needed someone to go over, visit with my dmil* a while, and then climb to the attic to find the box to deliver to a local church.  I’ve always wanted someone to go visit my elderly mother-in-law, but this was now escalated to a need with the added errand. 

Oh how I fretted over this before deciding to ask a very sweet but busy friend if she would mind doing this for me.  She was more than happy to do it.  She loved meeting my dmil, who is a fun but lonely person.  It worked out nicely all around after I finally asked.

People are not mind readers.  You can quote me on this.  They aren’t always good at taking hints either.  Sometimes we have to come right out and ask for favors.  Then again, God knows our heart and mind and motives. 

That can be comforting thought – or not, depending on what kind of day I am having.

IRL* If only I could recall who all has told me, “Let me know if there is ever anything you need….” I'd send someone else over to love on Jim's mother.