Unprofitable Servant

So should it be with you. When you have done all you have been commanded, say, "We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do." Luke 17:10

For the past ten or more years, I was at the forefront of action in Christian community building and sustaining. I thought I was an invaluable asset to my brothers and sisters in community. I served in a college movement that spread around the largest universities and colleges in our province of Pampanga. We organized conferences and seminars for large audience and small groups of support for college students. I was involved in continuing the work for single working professionals. After a year, our singles group was recognized as a fully governing branch by the national office and will celebrate our 17th anniversary this year. Overall, my contribution was acknowledged as I was appointed into regional and national positions in both college and singles movements. I was given the chance, with other members, to start-up a covenant community for the growing maturity in our local area.

I was expecting I would be valuable, when I arrived in the United States; I was looking for a way to actively serve God the way I did in the Philippines. Yet, after about two years of living in the US, I am inactive in doing the same stuff. I was involved in a catholic community; however, their way of life is very different with what I have grown with. We have an affiliate community three hours away from where we live and this distance makes us inaccessible with the said group.

And then this passage came like a steady lightning. I am an unprofitable servant. Since He already owns everything, God does not get something in return with what I have done, with what I am about to do or with what I am not doing. I have done what has been called for me to do and was privileged to do so. If He calls me to do this or that, it would be my benefit, not His benefit. His kingdom will continue to grow with or without my involvement. If He gives me something to work on, it would be for my growth, not for His kingdom to grow. His harvest will be reaped even without my hands in the plow. If my hands are armed with a sickle, it does not add to His crop.

As an unprofitable servant, my contributions are like a negligible puff in His mighty wind. With or without my negligible puff, His mighty wind will blow. But I am readying my lungs, when my negligible puff is called to join in.