Everyone has a calling. We might describe our calling as our job, an interest that inspires us, or a special skill that makes us valuable to others. Maybe we don’t know what our calling is, other than to get up and face the day!
Whatever we do for work or pleasure, each of us is called to serve God and our fellow man. This calling is lifelong. No one can take our place or do it for us. We may arrive slowly or quickly at our mission to live a life of service, but it will happen.
It is inevitable and natural for us to love and serve God, because we are His creation. When we feel the stirring to do God’s will and to give more of ourselves to others, we are really coming into our own—getting to know our true spiritual nature. It is deeply satisfying to know that we have a purpose, and that God approves of who we are. The more we learn that we are divine Love’s spiritual expression, the nearer we are to living our calling.
The Bible is full of people who were called to serve, including Moses, who was named “the servant of God” (Revelation 15:3). Moses had to grow into his mission. God’s demand that Moses lead captive Israel out of Egypt was a tall order that Moses thought he couldn’t possibly do, but he went forward when he saw that God was with him.
If we are apprehensive about large demands on us, we too can hear God’s voice reassuring us, as it did Moses: “Certainly I will be with thee; and this shall be a token unto thee, that I have sent thee: When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain” (Exodus 3:12).
The faithful servant is described in the Scriptures as a person who is near to God by being perfect, or living in devout obedience to God: “Mine eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land, that they may dwell with me: he that walketh in a perfect way, he shall serve me” (Psalms 101:6). The close relationship of God and His servant—always dwelling together, always unified in purpose—comes directly from the fundamental truth in Genesis, chapter 1, that man is the image and likeness of God.
Christian Science gives us a spiritually scientific explanation of this Bible teaching and a deep insight into our own identity. In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy uses the example of a mirror to explain how man serves God by reflecting His nature: “Your mirrored reflection is your own image or likeness. If you lift a weight, your reflection does this also. If you speak, the lips of this likeness move in accord with yours. Now compare man before the mirror to his divine Principle, God. Call the mirror divine Science, and call man the reflection. Then note how true, according to Christian Science, is the reflection to its original. As the reflection of yourself appears in the mirror, so you, being spiritual, are the reflection of God” (pp. 515–516).
Serving divine Principle, Love, is not so much a choice as a fact of life. God needs man to express His allness. Divine Love must have its expression in loving lives.
Christ Jesus was truly the servant of God because he embodied the Christ, the godliness that carried out the will of his heavenly Father to bless humanity. The Christ is present forever as the message of Truth and Love to each human consciousness. The Christ makes it possible for you and me to see where we can use our talents under God’s direction.
God puts it in our hearts to do His will, and the highest service is to be of use to others. Serving others is what Christ Jesus taught. He told his disciples, who were arguing about who should be the greatest, “I am among you as he that serveth” (Luke 22:27).
Serving God and man is a central characteristic of a Christian, and of a Christian Scientist.
That must have stopped the disciples in their tracks. They called Jesus “Master,” but he described himself as a servant. When Jesus washed the disciples’ feet at the last supper, he said: “Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet” (John 13:13, 14). With the power of his example to animate them, Jesus’ disciples went on to serve the young Christian Church.
Because Jesus lived so unselfishly, we have his teaching, his healings, and his resurrection and ascension to guide us today. Through our experiences and spiritual growth, we mature beyond just helping ourselves. We start to ask God how best to use our hours and days in His service.
The arena for our service can be anywhere. Maybe sales is what we do best. With serving as our motive, deception won’t enter into the relationship of salesperson to customer. A willingness to serve harmonizes the dealings between management and workers as both groups listen to the needs of the other. Serving saves projects from foundering or failing.
If we are praying, this is service—the best kind, in fact. We can always pray unselfishly for the welfare of our nation or world. And most essentially, serving is at the heart of the work of a Christian Science practitioner or Christian Science nurse. A life of service has love and healing at its core, the kind of love that gives up self-interest for a willingness to do whatever God asks of us.
We should expect a growing devotion to God because of who we are in Science—the immortal idea of Spirit. “Man is tributary to God, Spirit, and to nothing else,” Science and Health states (p. 481). We are vastly different from a physical being with a stingy or generous personality. A mortal man is a limited and untrue appraisal of God’s man. It isn’t possible for mortal impulses to grow beyond self-interest, because mortality does not know immortality. On the other hand, our love for humanity is a proof of immortality. As the Apostle John said, “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren” (I John 3:14).
Mortal mind, which is the antipode to goodness and immortality, gives its own messages about service, and they come in two varieties—either we can’t serve or we won’t serve. The notion that we can’t serve is like saying that God has taken away our opportunities, that we have no place, no time, or no ability to give of ourselves. Yet unlimited giving is the nature of God, and He expresses it through man. We can begin proving this by taking our little or big opportunities to serve as they come day by day.
When an idea is right, to say that we won’t serve because we don’t like the idea is to disobey divine Love. We may not hear or heed God’s call to service because we are busy serving ourselves. Do we worry that we will lose something by serving—that everyone will get a little piece of us? That’s a fear we can set aside because giving only enriches our understanding of who we are: loved, loving, unique, and whole as the expression of divine Love.
Either path of reasoning, that we can’t or won’t serve, is the carnal mind’s attempt to preserve itself by squelching the spirit of Love that defeats evil with good. What a relief that we can stop this line of thinking! Spiritual reasoning, with God’s perfection as its starting point, shows us that man reflects the powerful goodness and love that belong to our Maker. Health, endurance, patience, compassion, and intelligence are included in our nature as Spirit’s likeness. It is spiritual goodness that destroys the material fruits of evil, including sin and disease.
Serving God and man is a central characteristic of a Christian, and of a Christian Scientist. Mrs. Eddy’s students—and Christian Scientists of every era—expressed their devotion to serving the Cause of Christian Science through their works, and sometimes also in their words.
One of Mrs. Eddy’s students wrote to her: “Years ago I offered my services to you in any capacity in which I could serve you, and my desire has never changed. Command me at any time, in any way, beloved Leader” (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 325).
As we grow in love for God and man, helping others will take a larger part in our lives. God leads us to the opportunity to serve. You have a calling, and it is just for you to fulfill.
We can each fulfill in our own lives the prayer Mrs. Eddy gives us in her poem “Christ My Refuge”:
My prayer, some daily good to do
To Thine, for Thee;
An offering pure of Love, whereto
God leadeth me.
(Poems, p. 13)
Susan Stark is the Managing Editor of The Christian Science Journal, Sentinel, and Herald.
