‘Follow your heart’ seems to be the modern mantra expressing our ever increasing individualistic western culture. Christians, I fear, are buying into this and the word ‘duty’ now has bad connotations. It implies living by ‘shoulds’ and ‘oughts’ which are deemed to be very negative, not motivated by the authentic ‘you’ and stifling personal autonomy. Yet, so much of life is about taking responsibility, about duty towards family and friends. To be honest if I lived only according to my feelings, I’d whittle away my days doing very little.
Litter Picking with Jesus
Next Saturday our neighbourhood will host a festival and those of us who were able were asked to litter pick this week in preparation. I could think of many things I’d rather do but, I felt obliged, my duty, a responsibility to my neighbourhood. So, I joined my husband who unlike me actually wanted to go.
A refugee from the local hotel saw the need on social media and joined us in our back lane working alongside. He was young, coming from Somalia, a country where access to the gospel is hard and Christians are almost non-existent. We were thrilled to meet him and invited him home to eat with us. We’d often prayed for such an opportunity. We had Christian materials in his language and his joy and hunger to know more deeply moved me.
I realised again that often what begins as a sense of duty can overflow with love. In serving my community I was serving Christ. True freedom is found in following Christ’s heart in service, for in him we discover who he’s called us to be. I’m glad I resisted the self-fulfilling desire to stay home. John Newton sums it up for me.
John Newton’s Beautiful Verse.
Our pleasure and our duty
Though opposite before,
Since we have seen his beauty
Are joined to part no more.
To see the law by Christ fulfilled
And hear his pardoning voice,
Transforms a slave into a child,
And duty into choice.
Lenna’s Blog 