How Do I Serve without Becoming a Doormat?
“How do you serve without becoming a doormat?” This question, posed to me during a marriage counseling session, gets to the heart of a common misunderstanding of the biblical call to serve others. The short answer is that Jesus’s call never entails allowing another person to assert their will over you as you passively obey. However, we often struggle to understand key distinctions due to our failure to properly define our words.
Part of the problem is that many of us have never seen biblical servitude modeled faithfully. We hear “serve others” and imagine “be a slave to others.” That misunderstanding is how we end up with Christian parents organizing their lives in obedience to the fickle will of their toddler. We’ve all witnessed the flustered mom desperately trying to placate the selfish desires of her ungrateful teenager as veteran parents from a previous generation look on shaking their heads.
To add to the confusion, trendy parenting philosophies like Gentle Parenting encourage parents to cater their nurturing style to the emotional lives of their children. The experts tell us to stop correcting bad behavior and instead to listen for clues indicating what’s going on in their inner lives. Christians hear “gentle” and immediately think of our gentle and lowly Savior. We fail to recognize that Gentle Parenting and Christianity may be operating under two different definitions of the word. Our Savior was gentle, but he also knew when to be confrontational. Clearly, it’s possible to be both.
Jesus is always the model.
In his excellent book, Authority: How Godly Rule Protects the Vulnerable, Strengthens Communities, and Promotes Human Flourishing, Jonathan Leeman writes, “Never does [Jesus] take orders, as would an actual servant—not even from his mother. Instead, he defied both the religious and civil authorities. He demonstrated authority over people, demons, sickness, the elements, and death. He taught ‘with authority,’ said his hearers. And when he laid down his life, he did so by his ‘own authority.’”
Yet, Jesus himself said that his mission was “not to be served, but to serve” (Mark 10:45). How could Jesus be both a servant and the one always in charge? What kind of servitude allows a person to command others authoritatively? Apparently, the Jesus kind. And the Jesus kind of servitude defines the servitude of his followers.
Leeman concludes, “Jesus submitted and sacrificed himself as an act of authority—an act of taking charge and giving orders and declaring what’s what. His submission and authority were two sides of the same coin.”
Biblical servitude seeks the good of others as God defines it.
If you asked your three-year-old or even your sixteen-year-old to define what is best for them in a given situation, their definition would probably not line up with yours. God has placed you in your child’s life to guide them until they are mature enough to make choices that will lead them to flourish as human beings. As a parent, your wisdom qualifies you to act authoritatively for the good of your children until that time. Your child’s will should never be the deciding factor. We do not ask our children, “What do you want?” to decide big questions in life. Nor do we ask, “What do I want?” Instead, we ask, “What does God want?”
Biblical servitude seeks what’s best for the other person over what the other person wants in the moment. To do this effectively, you need to be confident in your knowledge of God’s Word. You need to be seeking to daily grow in wisdom. It doesn’t need to be a “my will versus your will” situation. You can serve others well to the degree that you are personally submissive to God.
Biblical gentleness never means transforming into a doormat. It means gently and authoritatively guiding others toward the One who is the way, the truth, and the life. We point others to Jesus knowing that the way of Jesus is what’s best for them, even if they don’t yet recognize that.
Biblical servitude seeks to model Jesus’s demeanor.
Again, looking to Jesus as our model, we notice that he was capable of righteous anger. He sometimes used intense—perhaps even harsh—language to get the attention of those who opposed him. Yet he never lost control. As a full human being, Jesus experienced the full range of human emotions, yet his emotions were always in proportion to the situation.
Servitude, therefore, does not mean stoic passivity. You may need to raise your voice to get the attention of your spouse. You are justified in feeling angry after a betrayal or a lie. Don’t be a doormat; be like Jesus.
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