The Good News – A Journey of a Lifetime - Volume 2 No 21

Mark 10:45 ESV: For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

    Welcome to Volume 2, No. 21 - The Good News - A Journey of a Lifetime experience tonight! Today I woke up sick and didn’t feel good, and I got started late for work at home. I’m currently on a weekly shot for my diabetes. I was going to fast - eating today as my sugar levels had been running high. It was about 7:30 pm and I really hadn’t thought about food. Then my diabetic alarm goes off at 57 which was dangerously and I haven’t been low for six months or longer! I grabbed some peanut butter crackers to stop it from dropping any further.

   I went and checked the refrigerator to find something for dinner. I said I didn't want fast food as they just makes me sick. As I shut the door on the refrigerator, I heard the urgency of the Holy Spirit say go get a healthy meal at Chili’s tonight. He said to me there is someone there that needs my assistance. I said yes Lord, lead me to this person who is in need. This is something I ask God for on a weekly basis. Not where I should go to eat, but who do you want to put in my path to help!

   I worked as a server for many years at Cracker Barrel in Scottsburg trying to make a living for my family while working at The Giveaway and The Scott County Journal. I always have said everyone needs to work as a server once in their life. Being a server you meet some very interesting people, travelers, locals, business people, families, single people, lonely people, people that are celebrating, people taking off from work for lunch or dinner, people rushing from school to a job or sporting event, some may be coming back from visiting a sick friend or family member at their home or hospital, some may be getting some nourishment from having medical test done and may have found out that they have been diagnosed with a sickness and maybe been told they have cancer. You never know what those customers are going through. Now turn the tables around, look at your server. This could be what your server Is going through. I know this from experience, I remember working $2.10 an hour as a server which barely takes care of the tax that you might owe, and sometimes you barely made minimum wage, which at that time was $7.25 an hour depending on what you made in tips. Sometimes you didn't make the minimum wage. But in my experience, I would show up for work to bring the diners their food, while i had to take my seven year old daughter to my parents for them to feed her while I had to work for tips. On top of that, I had to go and put on a smile and do my job while I was grieving in my heart, as my wife had passed away, while the diners had no clue what was going on in my life, unless they knew me personally. I struggled to make ends meet working two jobs, being alone serving strangers, wanting to be with my daughter for those meals and longing to be with my wife I had just lost weeks, months and even years later. I would be in a dining room full of people and felt all alone!

   It is something we should all think about when we go out and dine at a restaurant. Show a little mercy and grace to diners and to the servers. Show a smile to each person, be kind and generous to them.

  Remember they are there in your presence. We should ask God to lead us to be a kinder child of God. Did you realize that the highest position in Heaven is being a servant to others. Jesus serves others! My friend, Aaron Stainbrook, has been addressing this a lot over the past few weeks and months. We are to be like Jesus! Ask God to put someone in your path that you can serve and meet a need for them with a smile, a kind word or compliment, and if you can leave a little more on their tip. Leave off the soft drink and get a water and give the server the extra on their tip. If you are a couple, two soft drinks could help a server by $5 extra per table of a family of six could help their server by $15.

  I say this because, as tonight I ask God to open my spiritual eyes to see who He wants me to help. It was the only server on the floor. She was all smiles and you wouldn’t know anything different, she did her job with excellence. It was nearing closing time. So she gave me check and I paid my bills then I handed her what God told me to give. I prayed over my wallet and said this is yours, not mine. Whatever you say to give I will give! So when she came back to my table I handed her my tip. I’m not saying this to brag on myself, but I’m bragging on God using servants to help those who are need.

 The server sat down at my table and said you didn’t need to do this, but I want say thank you cause tonight there hasn’t been much business and I’m not making anything tonight and I needed the exact amount that you have given me tonight that I was hoping to make. She said I needed this amount to pay my utilities tomorrow and I didn’t know how I was going to raise the money.

  I told her I lived in Austin and that God sent me here tonight to help you. She smiled the biggest smile and she wiped tears from her eyes! That was worth more than any present I could ever receive. To see God guide my steps 20 miles away to direct my path to the person He wanted to help. We just have to be obedient and listen to the whisper in our spirit as the Holy Spirit guides us to do God’s will.