Oh my gosh, I got into so much trouble as a kid.
We had so little to do and too much time on our hands. Our dad wouldn’t let us have video games, and we had a $2.50 per month allowance and a list of chores as long as my arm.
At my house, it was old school… if you don’t do your chores, you don’t eat tonight. Everybody contributes or you don’t eat. But we were smart kids and we figured out how to get things done as quickly as possible. And then, what do you do with the rest of your time? We had VHS VCR tapes and we would watch those until they wore out. Then we’d go outside and follow the flow of our curiosity out into the woods, and then follow it out to somebody’s home, their backyard, and then that curiosity would lead us to things like walking on top of their fence with our BB gun, shooting stuff… Basically, I got in lots of trouble.
But sometimes, I actually used to get in trouble often for not doing my own chores because I was off helping other people do theirs. It only occurred to me later that it is actually a gift rather than a bad thing. As I reflected on that and as I worked through my own issues of acceptance and creating value for other people, I found one of the greatest things that ended up being an exact mirror opposite of what I thought it was.
At first, I thought I was helping other people so I could get their acceptance. But I was actually doing it so I could get my own acceptance because it felt good to me to help them.
I have been tapped out so many times, just absolutely exhausted, but then someone else needs either healing or they need a jump from their battery. I remember one night we were just finishing up at a new building in central Ogden for our school. It was about 11:30 pm and we were super tired and done for the day, when suddenly this lady who lived across the street comes and pokes her head in the school and she asks us, “Do any of you know how to get into a house if you’re locked out?”
She had an injury on her hand and she was really down on her luck. She was not able to afford to go to urgent care or the hospital, and she’d been suffering from this for days. We all go over there and we’re trying everything to get inside the door. We ended up having to break a window and reach around to get through the door. We had to replace one window, but that was better than her being outside in the winter in the middle of the night. Even though at that moment I was so absolutely beyond exhausted, I was able to do something for her.
When I find myself in service, that is where my real superhuman powers come out because it’s not about me. One of the biggest keys to our life and our growth is learning how to get past ourselves. It’s a super easy, instant-on button.
Do it for other people. If you’re in service, those superpowers come to you right away.
https://youtu.be/LbLPjrkKn-A