Stop Signs and Security Gates: Opportunities to Serve

I barely knew any Spanish and hardly had any relationships. I was learning to navigate the city and the culture. There was more cement and more heat than I had ever experienced. I was a newbie to our mission organization and to our church.

Yet, there I stood with a stop sign in hand and a smile on my face. I surely looked out of place with my terrible accent and unsure direction. My four-year-old son accompanied me and stuck out with his light skin and red, sun-kissed cheeks. Yet, there he was, waving and hand-slapping folks as they came to the entrance of the church. I couldn’t teach a class with my Master’s of Divinity training. I couldn’t lead the youth with my experience as a youth pastor. I couldn’t even use a broom to sweep the entrance stairs, because I couldn’t understand the person telling me where to find it. But I could serve. I could smile. I could greet. I could make sure people got across the street without getting swiped by a bus.

At the mission compound, I hadn’t gotten fully onboarded or confidently in my role. We were “the new family.” But I could serve. I could open the security gate for cars to exit next to the playground, where my kids were acclimating to the heat and to our new surroundings. I could pick up trash that blew out of the street into the campus.

Opportunities to serve. That’s what I said to my son each time we took advantage of one of these tasks before us. We called them opportunities to serve. The little things that didn’t bring us accolades but did bring us joy. Those tasks that humbled us but lifted up others.

Whether you are new to a place or not, feel equipped or inadequate, have lots of free time or only a little to give, you can find opportunities to serve. Service tasks at your job or your church, on the foreign mission field or your neighborhood mission field, opportunities abound for putting others above yourself.

Here are four suggestions for engaging in opportunities to serve.

Start Initially

Begin with a small opportunity. It is easy to make excuses or get bogged down in everything else you have on your schedule. Unless you are alone on an island, you can find an opportunity to serve. Often, we think we can’t start unless we are doing something big and seemingly greatly meaningful. Yet even the smallest service can make a large impact.

Look Intently

Be on the lookout for new opportunities to serve. When my son and I had in our minds to look for opportunities to serve, we never lacked finding them. It can be quite revealing and convicting when you start seeing all the times you can serve others now that you were previously missing before.

By engaging regularly in opportunities to serve, you demonstrate an example to others around you how to put others before yourself.

Pray Intentionally

Whenever you have an opportunity to serve, pray. Pray for your heart, that you will serve with joy and humility. Pray for the person you are serving. At times, you may take an opportunity to serve where you may not even speak to the person you are serving, but pray for them in that moment that they may see Christ in you and hear of His faithfulness to them.

Grow Incrementally

Opportunities to serve often become sanctifyingly humbling…menial tasks you didn’t consider before. They grow your patience and increase your willingness to do for others. Also, most often, what you don’t do now will not magically start happening simply because you have a specific role, position, or location in the future. As you engage by serving in the small opportunities, you will be better positioned to serve in the future.

Opportunities to serve abound. Look around, start engaging, bathe the process in prayer, and watch yourself and those around you be blessed as you faithfully serve. Whether you are holding a stop sign or opening a security gate, you have an opportunity to engage in being a light in the darkness by showing and sharing Christ through serving.