Habits: Serving

Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”

There is a profound difference between the thoughts we think and the deep emotional currents that drive those thoughts. Yesterday, we examined the mental calculations of scarcity, but today we must descend into the emotional waters where those calculations are born. When Andrew brought the young boy forward with his small lunchbox of loaves and fish, he didn’t do so with a posture of triumphant, unshakeable faith. Instead, his voice carried a poignant, vulnerable mixture of fragile hope and heavy doubt, asking how far they would go among so many. In that single phrase, Andrew gave voice to a universal human emotion: the deep, visceral anxiety of insignificance. It is the sinking feeling that our best efforts, our most genuine intentions, and our small acts of service are so painfully small in comparison to the massive brokenness of the world that we might as well not even bother trying.

If we are completely honest with ourselves, many of our excuses for not stepping out to serve others are deeply rooted in this unrecognized emotional landscape of fear. We feel the fear of being exposed as an amateur, the fear of committing our precious time and regretting it, or the fear that someone else could perform the task far better than we ever could. Rather than naming these heavy emotions, we often disguise them as false humility. We say that we are just being realistic, or that we want to leave that space open for someone who is truly gifted. But beneath that polished veneer of humility lies a trembling heart that is terrified of failure. We want to control the narrative of our lives so perfectly that we refuse to enter any arena where our success isn’t completely guaranteed. We hide our little baskets of loaves and fish because we cannot bear the potential embarrassment of our offering being deemed insufficient.

Spiritual formation requires us to stop running from these messy, uncomfortable emotions and instead learn to identify and name them honestly in the presence of God. When we feel the tightening in our chests or the sudden rise of irritability when asked to help serve, we need to ask ourselves: What is the actual emotion driving this reaction? Is it a deep exhaustion? Is it a fear of losing control over our schedules? Is it a lingering resentment from a past church experience where we felt used rather than formed? Scripture shows us time and again that Jesus is never repelled by our emotional honesty. Andrew brought his doubt right to Jesus’ feet, explicitly stating how small the offering looked. He didn’t try to polish his statement or pretend to be more confident than he actually was. He simply showed up with his mixed emotions, holding the boy’s lunch out for inspection.

When we bring our raw, unedited feelings to the text of Scripture, we discover a profound sense of relief. We see that Jesus does not reprimand Andrew for his lack of absolute certainty, nor does He mock the smallness of the boy’s offering. Instead, He welcomes the fragments. When we learn to name our fears directly, saying, “Lord, I am terrified that I have nothing of value to say to a group of middle schoolers,” or “Father, I am deeply anxious about giving up my comfortable Sunday morning routine,” we create a space where grace can actually meet us. The gospel does not demand emotional perfection; it simply invites emotional presence. It is in the very moment we acknowledge our internal poverty that we become receptive to the expansive, comforting reality of the Holy Spirit, who loves to take our anxious, trembling modern lives and settle them into a deep, abiding assurance.

When you consider stepping out of your comfort zone to serve others, what specific emotion, such as fear, inadequacy, resentment, or exhaustion, immediately surfaces in your heart?

How does knowing that Jesus welcomed Andrew’s honest doubt change the way you bring your own messy, unpolished emotions into your daily prayers?

Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass in that place, and they sat down (about five thousand men were there). Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish.

The spiritual life eventually moves from the way we think and feel into the deeply practical arena of the human will. Our will is the steering wheel of our lives; it is the faculty by which we choose what we desire, what we prioritize, and how we act. In the narrative of the feeding of the five thousand, we catch a beautiful glimpse of the alignment of the human will with the divine invitation. Think for a moment about the young boy who surrendered his lunch. He had to make a physical choice to open his hands, let go of his food, and watch it leave his control. He had to deliberately bend his will toward cooperation with Jesus. This was not an act of dramatic, grand heroism; it was a simple, ordinary choice to cooperate with the moment. The boy didn’t demand to see a detailed business plan of how Jesus was going to split the fish among thousands; he just handed the basket over and let go.

True spiritual formation is never about mere behavior modification; it is about the deep, gradual training of the will to instinctively trust the character of God. We cannot simply try to be like Jesus by a sudden act of willpower in a moment of intense crisis. Instead, we must train our wills through ordinary, daily habits of obedience so that when the crisis comes, our souls are already aligned with the kingdom. When we look at our schedules and choose to intentionally volunteer our time, whether it is holding a baby in the nursery, setting up extra chairs for an expanding service, or driving a golf cart to welcome people in the parking lot, we are engaging in a form of vital resistance against our naturally self-centered wills. We are actively declaring that our lives do not exist solely for our own consumption, comfort, or personal entertainment.

Every time we choose to serve, we are asking a vital formational question: Is what I am currently doing with my time and energy actually helping me become a person who loves like Jesus? If our daily lives are organized entirely around the preservation of our own autonomy, our wills become incredibly brittle, self-protective, and fragile. We become easily offended, deeply entitled, and intensely anxious about maintaining our personal boundaries. But when we choose the habit of service, we are stepping into the exact lifestyle that Jesus modeled. Jesus did not walk this earth demanding to be served; He continuously emptied Himself, washing dirty feet, touching the outcasts, and breaking bread for the exhausted crowds. When we align our wills with His by engaging in small acts of service, we are stepping into the deep stream of His transforming presence.

This alignment of the will requires a regular relinquishment of our need to control the final outcome. The boy surrendered his bread, but it was Jesus who did the miraculous work of multiplication. We often hold back our service because we mistakenly think we are responsible for the ultimate results. We think that if we cannot completely transform this person’s life, our service is a failure. But your job is never to change someone’s life; your job is simply to bring your small, insignificant-looking basket to Jesus and leave the multiplication entirely up to Him. When we train our wills to accept this truth, a beautiful freedom emerges. We can serve with a light, joyful heart, free from the crushing pressure of performance, knowing that our only responsibility is simple, faithful availability.

In what specific ways does your current weekly routine reveal that your will is more aligned with personal comfort than with the self-giving love of Jesus?

What is one small, concrete step of obedience you can take this week to actively train your will to release control and serve someone else without expecting anything in return?

Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass in that place, and they sat down (about five thousand men were there).

It is incredibly easy to over-spiritualize the text of Scripture, completely forgetting that the stories we read happened to real, breathing human beings with physical bodies just like ours. In John chapter six, before any miracle occurred, before any bread was broken or any stomach was filled, Jesus made a highly specific physical demand: “Have the people sit down.” The text beautifully notes that there was plenty of green grass in that place. Imagine the scene from a physical perspective. This massive crowd had been walking for miles, tracking Jesus along the dusty shorelines, driven by a deep desperation to be near Him. Their legs were sore, their muscles were maybe cramped, and their stomachs were empty. They were physically exhausted. Jesus did not begin by preaching a long, complex theological sermon to their tired minds; He began by inviting their weary bodies to physically rest upon the soft, green creation He had provided.

Our spiritual formation is intrinsically tied to our physical selves. We do not exist as disembodied souls trapped inside a physical shell; we are unified, embodied beings. How we treat our physical bodies, including how we sleep, how we eat, how we rest, and how we move, profoundly impacts our spiritual capacity to love and serve others. When we are chronically sleep-deprived, fueled by stress and poor nutrition, and running at a frantic, unsustainable pace, our physical bodies enter a state of fight-or-flight. In that physical state of survival, it becomes almost impossible to practice the fruit of the Spirit. We become physically incapable of patience, easily irritated by the slightest disruption, and completely blind to the needs of the people walking right beside us. We cannot give away the love of Christ when our physical containers are completely empty and burnt out.

Notice that Jesus creates a physical environment of order and rest before He introduces His miraculous abundance. By telling the crowd to sit down on the grass, He forced them to halt their frantic jostling, to let go of their anxious striving, and to receive their nourishment from a posture of complete stillness. For many of us, the primary barrier to serving the local church or engaging in our community is not a lack of desire, but a lack of physical margin. We have overscheduled our bodies to such a degree that the mere thought of showing up early to church to serve on a team feels like an oppressive physical burden. We value our boat days or our slow Sunday mornings not out of a healthy rhythm of holy Sabbath, but because we are desperately trying to recover from a frantic, exhausting workweek that has completely drained our physical vitality.

To develop a healthy, sustainable habit of service, we must intentionally audit the physical rhythms of our lives. Are we honoring our biological limits through consistent, restorative sleep? Are we intentionally moving our bodies in ways that foster health rather than chronic stress? Are we allowing ourselves to physically sit down on the green grass of God’s presence, letting go of our striving before we attempt to offer our lives for the sake of others? When we care for our bodies as gifts from God, we discover a newfound physical capacity to show up for others. We can stand at a door and smile warmly at a stranger because our bodies are rested. We can hold a crying baby or run a production camera with joy because we are not running on fumes. Our physical rest becomes the fertile soil from which our service grows, transforming our bodily presence into a tangible sanctuary of God’s peace.

How is your current level of physical exhaustion or wellness directly affecting your capacity to be patient, kind, and present to the people around you?

What practical change do you need to make to your physical rhythms of sleep, nutrition, or rest this week so that your body can become a healthy instrument of service to God?

When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, “Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.” So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.

We conclude our devotional journey where we began: with the profound truth that our individual habits are never merely about us. They have a massive, inescapable ripple effect on the relationships that form our communities. When the young boy made the quiet, individual choice to surrender his modest lunch to Jesus, he had absolutely no idea that his single act of obedience would result in the physical nourishment of thousands of human beings. His private willingness to trust Jesus created a public space where an entire multitude experienced the tangible, life-giving goodness of God. And the story didn’t end when the crowd was full. The disciples walked through the remnants of the miracle, gathering twelve baskets of leftovers, which meant one full basket for each of the twelve disciples who had initially doubted. The boy’s small offering ultimately out-blessed the entire community, leaving a tangible surplus that proved God’s abundance.

Parker shared a beautiful, modern example of this relational ripple effect when he spoke about Logan, a young man who walked back into his life years after being in his second and third grade small group. When Parker was just a teenager with long hair, showing up week after week to hang out with a group of energetic young boys, he couldn’t possibly see the long-term trajectory of his service. He was just bringing his small basket of time and presence. Yet, years later, that simple habit of consistency became a foundational pillar in Logan’s faith story. Our service is almost always for the benefit of someone else’s future. Every time we show up to greet a stranger at the door, every time an adult leader sits on a rug in Upstreet to listen to a child’s story, and every time a volunteer steps up to serve, they are weaving a relational safety net for someone who is desperately searching for the reality of Jesus.

The growth in attendance taking place within our church community is not just a collection of sterile statistics; it represents real people with complex, beautiful, and broken stories. It represents individuals who are walking through our doors carrying immense pain, questions, and doubt. People who are quietly giving faith one final chance. When we choose to sit on the sidelines, hoarding our time and holding back our talents because we feel inadequate, we aren’t just missing out on a personal blessing; we are actively withholding a relational touchpoint that God desires to use to reach someone else. Our habits of isolation or engagement directly determine whether our community feels like a crowded, chaotic marketplace or a warm, welcoming family where there is always room for one more person at the table.

As you step into the days ahead, remember that you are being invited to be an active part of a generational story. The local church is God’s chosen vehicle to bring His beautiful presence to a fractured world. When you offer your unique loaves and fish, meaning your specific personality, your skills, your smile, or your muscles, you are contributing to a communal abundance that will echo far beyond your lifetime. You may never fully know this side of heaven how many baskets of leftovers your small choices will produce. But you can live with the quiet, joyful confidence that when you place your life into the hands of Jesus, He will use it to feed a hungry world, leaving a legacy of grace that will change the relational landscape of our community for generations to come.

Look back over your own life story. Who is a specific volunteer, leader, or friend who offered their small basket of time to invest in you when you needed it most? Have you thanked them recently?

As you consider the rapid growth of the people around you, how can you intentionally adjust your relational focus this week to move from being a consumer of community to a contributor of abundance?