TimeBanco - The Spirit of Service

“Life’s most urgent question is: What are you doing for others?” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Service to others and for others is not just a virtue, it is an innate principle of life that effects our whole society: our culture, our spirituality, and even our economy. The idea that service is constituent to being human is not just a nostalgic romantic concept left over from the pre-agricultural age. Service is as primordial and constitutive a principle of living as the earth we inhabit and the air we breathe and the food we eat.

Many philosophers and philanthropists as well as prophets and sages through the ages have made this observation. I share the following as samples of this.

When it comes to our culture, service is foundational.

“Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.”– Albert Einstein

“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.”– Pablo Picasso

“Life engenders life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich.”– Sarah Bernhardt

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”– Mahatma Gandhi

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Part of being a person is about helping others.” Regis Murayi

When it comes to our spirituality as human beings, service is imperative.

“Help thy brother’s boat across and lo! Thine own has reached the shore.”– Hindu Proverb

“Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”– Buddha

“We rise by lifting others.”– Robert Ingersoll

“When you do it to the least of these, my brothers, you do it unto me.” Jesus of Nazareth

“Doing nothing for others is the undoing of ourselves. -Horace Mann

What actions are most excellent? To gladden the heart of a human being, to feed the hungry, to help the afflicted, to lighten the sorrow of the sorrowful, and to remove the wrongs of the injured. – Mohammed pbuh

When it comes to the economy, service is the path to success and happiness.

“No work is insignificant. All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.”– Martin Luther King Jr.

“Those who are happiest are those who do the most for others.”– Booker T. Washington

“You can have everything you want in life if you just help enough people get what they want in life.”– Zig Zigla

“Earn your success based on service to others, not at the expense of others.” – H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

“We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.”– Winston Churchill

Yes, service is crucial to the human endeavor. And that service can be great or small. All service is directed to the well-being of another and therefore an expression of love – the life energy of the universe. We conclude with two quotes about both the type of service we can render and the level of commitment to service that can indeed change human history.

“Great opportunities to help others seldom come, but small ones surround us every day.”– Sally Koch

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”– Dr. Seuss

Courtesy of Pastor Doug Sheplar