It’s that time of year! That’s right. Dandelion season.
Of course not everyone shares her innocent enthusiasm.
With their little fluffy heads, incessantly popping up from the ground, like those rodents in a “whack a mole” game; they can be an irritation to some, particularly those who are older. It seems every time you pick one out from the ground, five more take its place. No matter how well you did at getting rid of them last year, there they are again this year and they’ve multiplied!
Dandelions: are they friend or foe?
We can learn a lot from the dandelion. Many of us differ on our view of serving to the same extremes as we view dandelions. A few see the beauty in serving. While many prefer that service didn’t exist but that everything looked beautiful for their enjoyment.
When we reduce service to volunteerism or just getting stuff done then we empty the transformative power of God out of the task. When we serve with others with a Great Commission and Great Commandment motivation then God strengthens our faith, and supplies us with more grace to serve according to the gifts, strengths and passions that He so generously gives to us. We are strengthened through service.
Let’s be clear. Serving isn’t easy. It goes against our natural human inclinations. We prefer to be served. We like it when our preferences are met. We want what feels good to us. Admittedly there are always things that we’d prefer not to do, or that we’d complain about if there weren’t done the way we’d like them. We have this desire to be above others, and serving can seem demeaning. Serving takes time from what we’d prefer to be doing, and it can certainly be inconvenient, even messy.
Jesus understood all of that. In fact, he looked through the façade that his own disciples were presenting and spoke to the motives that they somehow thought were hidden from view. He reminded them that true greatness isn’t flexing your status and having others do things for you. True greatness is to learn to serve others. And then he says, in the same way that I am serving you.
We are not strengthened to serve. We are strengthened as we serve. It’s the dandelion effect!
Even when we feel like we have nothing to give, or perhaps even that our service is underappreciated, God is working His grace through us.
The reason that you can’t get rid of dandelions is two fold: one their root systems go deeper than the those contraptions you’re using to pull them out. Secondly, even when they get old and turn to white fluff and they disappear. Their service isn’t done. Each dandelion flower holds about 200 seeds that release from the head of the stem and float through air using it’s God given little parachute and lands on your neighbours grass, or on in the next neighbourhood, they can float for long distances before landing, and taking root and popping up again.
Therefore, we ought to take time to honour those dandelions among us. Learn from them and their faithful example, so that we can become receive the seeds of faithful service into the soil of our hearts, that reflect and extend their example of service among us.
Many of us approach the concept of serving like they were dandelions. We’d prefer it didn’t exist. We like our grass clean and free from those weeds. It might be beneficial to remind ourselves that dandelions have nutritional and even medicinal benefit from their root to their leaves and the flower. (Having now been gifted a jar of homemade dandelion jelly, I can confirm this statement as true). By remaining in our grass they provide nutrients that the ground needs for this season of the year. When we extract them from our lawn, we deprive the whole from the benefit that comes through their inclusion.
We like our “church” to be easy to enjoy. We like our preferences catered to, and for some, serving isn’t convenient. We think we’ll serve when we know more, or when we’re more confident in our faith. When you serve, God strengthens your spirit. He supplies you the grace needed to use the gifts he’s given. We serve not for our own benefit but for the extension of the love of God toward others. We reflect Jesus best when we serve sacrificially with God’s Kingdom purposes in mind.
Next time you think about uprooting those pretty yellow flowers, remember: As the dandelion is quietly persistent and relentless, every part of its composition brings benefit to everything else around it. Even when it seems stopped or weary, its effort is multiplied, carried by the mysterious placement of God.
We are not strengthened to serve, we are strengthened as we serve: It's the dandelion effect!
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