Kristin Jamieson looks at 1 Peter 4 and describes how to serve in the strength that God supplies
A few weeks back my then-three-year-old son and I were reading his Beginner’s Bible. As we read the stories of Jesus’ ministry, I flipped a page and stopped short, and then was overwhelmed by laughter.
‘What’s so funny, mum?’ my son asked. ‘Oh, darling – that picture is me!’ There, with angry eyes and kitchen-frizzed hair, tongue out in concentration while madly whisking a bowl, stood Martha (above). Annoyed that her sister wasn’t helping, she glared at Mary.
Behind the scenes
How often I have felt like that. How the image poked my pride and humbled my heart. I am the woman in the kitchen muttering under her breath and thinking how unfair it all is. As a pastor’s wife, much of what I do is ‘behind the scenes’: while I am involved in aspects of public ministry, my fundamental role is to be a shock absorber and supporter to my husband as he preaches, teaches, counsels, and helps facilitate church planting in our region.
We work as a team, and many of my efforts help free him to pastor. Together with my husband, I care for and educate our four children (ages 9, 6, 4, and 4 months); open our home for meals and counselling sessions; host visiting friends and pastors in our parsonage’s guest rooms; and do our best to love God, our church, and our neighbours here in Washington DC.
Many other pastors’ wives know exactly the kind of work I describe above, and would likely agree that it’s not easy. Another night putting children to bed alone while your husband cares for someone in a difficult situation. Figuring out how to plan, shop for and cook a big meal for a large group of university students. Doing a Bible study or one-to-one discipleship meetings while balancing work outside the home, school runs, a nursing baby… the list of potential cares and responsibilities can go on and on.
Driven to serve
I am new to this role. We’ve been two years here at Capitol Hill Baptist Church, where my husband serves as an associate pastor alongside several other full-time pastors and many more non-staff elders. Though my husband and I have always striven to be active participants in church life, he worked for a Christian non-profit while completing seminary and then was a full-time student while completing a PhD in New Testament at Selwyn College, Cambridge. When we arrived in DC, I was driven by an internal pressure to try to ‘do all the right things’ to help my husband and cheerfully serve our church. I wanted to excel at being a pastor’s wife. I felt a bit frantic and tended to grow weary, tired and worn when I tried to live life in my own strength.
We had been in DC for less than a year when these heart attitudes were fully exposed. I became pregnant with our fourth child, and suddenly much of the work I was doing (and liked to do!) had to stop. We entered survival mode. My pregnancies are difficult, with severe anaemia and illness. We scaled back hospitality. We rarely had people in our home. My husband had been pastoring for less than one year, and what I had hoped our ministry would look like suddenly shrank and turned inward. But in this time of weakness I had to be still and humble. I had to remember that my worth was in Christ, not in what I could do or whom I could help.
Instead, we received much cheerful, kind and self-sacrificial care. A fellow pastor’s wife made us a meal every Tuesday for the first 20 weeks of my pregnancy. Nearer our daughter’s birth, certain complications took us to hospital frequently for specialist appointments, and I struggled against terrible exhaustion. A ‘care calendar’ was set up for us: meals were brought to feed our family three times a week, friends helped with our older children’s school run, and others watched our young son.
A key passage
I was reminded during this time of crucial verses in 1 Peter: ‘The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober minded for the sake of your prayers. Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace… whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies – in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ’ (1 Peter 4:7–10, 11b).
God was glorified by the way many at our church made sacrifices to care for us, and I was reminded of the ‘why’ of serving one another. I knew deeply that those who cared for us were doing it because they love us and love Jesus, and they desired to glorify Him by caring for us. What does the Lord require of you? To love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love your neighbour as yourself. How helpful it was for me to have a ‘reset’ by being on the receiving end of so many loving our family as themselves.
Equipped for service
When I viewed my service to others as solely a two-way interaction – me serving or being served by someone – I set myself up for disappointment and fatigue. I forgot to serve with the strength that God supplies. I forgot that the work I do is in service of the gospel, to care for others and help them come to know Jesus or know Him better. And I was forgetting the eternal worth of small things like a meal served or an intentional conversation, instead putting too much weight on the type of meal served or how tired I felt before having the conversation – making it more about me and my abilities than about the God I serve!
When we train our hearts to love what God loves, we are equipped to love and serve those around us for the sake of Jesus and with the strength that He supplies. Mary was able to sit at His feet, but we get the Helper whom Jesus sends to all believers, the Holy Spirit (John 15:26). Through Christ, I have access to living water that will never leave me thirsty. It doesn’t run dry (John 4:14). I will grow weary, impatient, irritable – but Jesus never does. I can rely on Him in prayer – even quick prayers offered over the washing up, or before meeting with a couple in a difficult situation after we’ve already had a long day, trusting that He who began a good work in me will be continuing on.
He isn’t in the other room teaching like He was for Martha, but He is in the throne room of the Father, interceding for us. May that spur us on to love and good deeds until the day of His return!
