Dahhh…

A few weeks ago, I randomly had a conversation with a friend about what it means to be a manly man.  I liked her definition, “a manly man is someone who is not afraid to stand up for what he believes in.”  I am still trying to find my definition for what it means to be a man.  I think a lot of it has to do with service.

For the past few years it’s been Acacia’s tradition on Valentine’s day for the guys to cook for the sisters.  This year, to go with that, we had a short message.  The typical message in these situations seems to be from Ephesians 5, which has the command, “husbands love your wives…..”

Love is many things.  First Corinthians 13 makes that very clear.  Love is also about service, as I pointed out in the last post, Jesus showed the full extent of his love through the amazing service of washing his disciples feet.  So I guess if we take Jesus as the example for manliness, I guess that would mean my definition for manliness would be this.

“A manly man sets an example of love through serving.”

Of course this love is not just the love between husband and wife, and it manifests itself in different ways with different relationships.  The way you love/serve your wife would be different from your friends and from your coworkers for sure… but the basic concept is the same.

Last year in Acacia we had a set of core values that we chose to be our focus for the year. I still remember the acronym, CLOUDS, and each of the letters… Community, Lordship, Outreach, Unity, Discipleship, and Service. I still remember most of those studies pretty well too, but there is one study in particular I remember very well, not because it was a very good study… In fact I remember it because it was the worst study I had ever been to, sadly it was one that I was leading. The passage was John 13, Jesus washing his disciples’ feet. Sounds like it should be pretty straightforward, but for some reason it just didn’t work, and I still am haunted by memories of it….. Haha well I guess it’s not really that severe that I have nightmares, but from time to time I think about that study and how bad it was…

Anyways, recently I was reminded of that study again.  This month I started going to BSF (which stands for Bible Study Fellowship I’m guessing) and ironically the first week’s study is on that very same passage.   But strangely the study doesn’t focus too much on the obvious act of service shown by Jesus, instead it focuses on the love that Jesus showed in his last hour. The first few verses show of John 13 show that Jesus was fully aware that his time was coming soon.  He fully knew the hardship that he would soon face, but until the end, what shows is his love for his disciples.  The first verse sets the stage for Jesus’ famous act of service and why it really is an act of love.

It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having LOVED his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his LOVE.

The act of service shown by Jesus was an outpouring of His love, and it was a precursor to Jesus’ greatest act of service and also his greatest outpouring of love, his death on the cross.  In verse 14, Jesus tells his disciples that they should be washing each others’ feet.  He doesn’t explicitly say it in this passage, but he says it in so many other places, that we should love each other.  Jesus’ act of service is really an outpouring of that love.  Maybe that’s what I messed up in that study last year…. Service is not something that is forced, separately on its own, service really is the practical outpouring of love.  If we are to love one another, we are to serve one another.  If we serve one another, we are showing that we are loving one another.

I usually park between 6 to 8 blocks away from my work, depending on how late/early I am.  The place I park my car is not the greatest area, and I’ve heard from coworkers that cars have been broken into there.  In the two years that I’ve been parking there, I haven’t had a problem.

My daily walk to my car takes me underneath a couple of freeway overpasses.  Lately there’s been a homeless guy sleeping out there.  He’s pretty cool, quite friendly, and he has a dog that sleeps with him.  Today I happened to have an apple with me, so I asked him if he wanted it.  He said he couldn’t eat it because of his teeth, and he smiled, a nice smile, but filled with gaps. I also had a grapefruit with me, which he ended up accepting.

Anyways, that got me thinking…. well the first thing I thought was, “next time I’ll bring an orange…”  The second thing I thought is that I’m really limited in my capacity to help.

The third thing that I’ve been thinking was maybe I’m the one that needs help. I thought about that gap toothed smile, a simple smile that reveals a simple contentment.  I trudge to work every day, and never have a simple smile like that… The simple joy from the simple grace of simply being alive…. that should be reason enough to smile.