As cross-cultural workers, we tend to be a hardworking bunch. We want to see God’s Kingdom grow on the earth, and we want to be faithful to His call on our lives where He’s put us. We often take the role of initiator in our relationships, whatever that looks like in our specific culture, making sure to keep in touch with our local friends, to stay in their lives, to know and love them well. Perhaps we’re in church work or in education and have lots of jobs to do each week to keep things moving along. At times we struggle with over-work or perhaps with feeling tired of being the initiator, but for today, let’s leave those issues aside. 

How are we at being recipients? How do we respond when a local friend offers to help, to take something off our plate? Is it possible to make serving an idol and to resist the help of others? Do we feel that accepting help is weak? 

Weakness. 

Need. 

Usually not our favorite words. 

We forget that our very salvation is a gift from God, that our posture as Christians is one of weakness and need and that God entered in. We did nothing to earn it and can’t work hard enough to keep it. Grace upon grace. 

When we remember our weakness, we’re most ready to serve others. Being mindful that all we have in Christ is a gift helps us work and serve out of true love and joy, not out of a desire to be accepted or an attempt to be better than those around us. We overflow with gratitude that leads to service. 

It’s no secret that we often have gospel amnesia and need to remind ourselves of the riches we’ve received in Christ. We slip into a works-righteousness mode and serve out of drudgery with a grumbling spirit. It’s not automatic or necessarily easy to remember that we are recipients: we must regularly proclaim this reality to ourselves as we live our Christian lives where God has placed us and walk in the good works that God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10).