I purchase of otherwise acquire so many books that I confess some of them end up in a pile for quite a long time before I look at them. One book I picked up a while ago had a title I couldn’t resist: Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World (by Joanna Weaver). Yet, somehow it managed to get buried so that I only picked it up recently.
One of the first things I saw as I started to flip through it was a page with a box labeled, Checking your Motives. The thrust of it was that while serving others is important, why we serve is as important as how we serve. It suggested a series of questions, drawn from Jan Johnson’s Living a Purpose-Full Life, that are helpful in ascertaining whether we are doing “the work of Christ with the heart of Christ.” The questions are:
Am I serving to impress anyone?
Am I serving to receive external rewards?
Is my service affected by moods and whims (my own as well as others’)?
Am I using this service to feel good about myself?
Am I using my service to muffle God’s voice demanding I change?
Some useful questions to put to ourselves, particularly when we find ourselves doing, doing, doing.
Creo en Dios! 