In studying a number of servants who radically followed Jesus, Philip Yancey came to this conclusion:
I was prepared to honor and admire these servants, to hold them up as inspiring examples. I was not prepared to envy them. Yet as I now reflect on the two groups side by side, stars and servants, the servants clearly emerge as the favored ones, the graced ones. Without question, I would rather spend time among the servants than among the stars: they possess qualities of depth and richness and even joy that I have not found elsewhere. Servants work for low pay, long hours, and no applause, “wasting” their talents and skills among the poor and uneducated. Somehow, though, in the process of losing their lives they find them.
–Philip Yancey
So often in our own minds, we elevate the stars of this world and wish we could be like them. But when we get down to who we would really want to spend time with, who we would want to be our friend, we realize that it is not the self-promoting stars, but rather the servants who we truly envy.
I pray that God will help me be a servant who finds the truth of discovering the most abundant life possible as I lose my life in serving Him.