Praying to Be a Servant (PrayerLife)

Monroe County

There's an older worship song we used to sing called "Change My Heart, O God." Sometimes when I sang it I would extend my arms in front of me and lift my palms up in an act of receiving. I'm prayer-worshiping before God, asking him to change the shape of my heart into greater Christlikeness. Morph me, O God.

My inner morphing is not for me alone. Because as my heart takes more and more of the shape of Christ's heart, I will become a servant. I will be someone who has come to serve, not to be served. Ruth Haley Barton writes: "Our transformation is never for ourselves alone. It is always for the sake of others." (Ruth Haley Barton, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership: Seeking God in the Crucible of Ministry, p. 74)

What is good for me is for the good of others. Personal transformation is for the benefit of many. Any change that is only for the happiness of the individual is not from God.God is into community and otherness.

As I pray "change me, O God," I am asking to be a servant, as Jesus was.