Going For Gold

“What will we carry?

What will stay with us?

What will shine like gold

when the story’s told?

Some things will tarry

some will return to dust

There are things we can

and things we can not….

keep.”

Alli Rogers

This song has been playing over and over in my head in recent weeks.  The hype and mania surrounding the Olympics always has a way of rubbing me a wee bit  raw.  Not that I don’t enjoy watching as much as the next person but somehow, when it’s all said and done, I am left wondering about a lot of things.   It makes me question what we’re going for.  In some way we are all going for gold in one arena or another.

A golden paystub, title, home, job, something that will make us feel worthwhile, recognized, appreciated… a winner..

Jesus had it all.  And he left it to become a servant of all.  He left His golden throne for a dusty old manger, his mansion of glory for a carpenter's hovel, streets of gold for dusty roads in the backwoods of Judea.

And he calls his own to do likewise.  As I ponder going for gold I think of my good friend Shane, and his beautiful family, packing up to move (back) to Haiti,  leaving the comforts and riches we live with every day to become sojourners in a community reduced to ashes and rubble.  They prepare to go, and their act of love and service will shine like gold in the hearts of those they minister to.

What things will tarry?  Really tarry into eternity I mean.  Only what we invest into others.  The seeds of love and kindness that we plant in the soil of other lives.  The examples of Christ’s love that we live out as we reach out and seek to embrace others and invite them to join us on this golden journey.  This journey towards the only thing that matters, the only thing that will endure, the only thing that will stand the test of time.  A relationship with the Creator of our Souls.   To be beyond excited, beyond crazed about this journey that will end at a heavenly podium, before our heavenly father, and the bridegroom that waits to crown us with many crowns. 

I look at my children.  My husband.  The people I rub shoulders with every day and I think that there is no greater calling than to LOVE them.  SERVE them.  Be Jesus hands and feet to them.  And surely there can be no greater reward here or in the hereafter than to hear those words,

'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!.”

Sometimes it seems so far from stellar.  So…..mundane. This stripping myself of me, tying this apron of service around my waist, getting on my knees and washing another’s proverbial  feet.  It requires as much dedication and commitment and sacrifice as any Olympic dream.  Maybe more.