So evidently God didn’t want you all to help me discuss His acts of service…which is perfectly fine, because He gave me something wonderful when His timing was perfect. (Or when I was quiet enough to listen. That might have been the case.)
So! Here, finally, is the next in my series of posts on the five Love Languages (as written about by Gary Chapman in The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts
As children, we take this love language for granted. Our parents (hopefully) showed us love through this love language, for when we were little, they are the ones to cook our meals, clothe us, help us with chores that are beyond our capability, etc.
But as we grow and mature, our parents naturally do less and less for us. Eventually, we get to the point where people only do things for us for two reasons: 1) Someone or something is giving them an external incentive to help us, or 2) They want to. That desire is the Acts of Service love language.
For some people, Acts of Service are still a very natural way to show love for someone. The very fact that they love someone makes them want to do things for them. These people naturally look for ways to do things for their loved ones. For others of us, though, it’s more a mental, “Hmmm…it’s been a while since I did something special for my husband. I bet he’d appreciate it if I did something again. What can I do?”
You see the difference? Virtually everyone knows that, if you love someone, you’ll do special things for them now and again, and almost everyone does it. The difference is in how naturally it comes to the person. And, of course, the difference is also in how much it means to you when someone else does an act of service for you.
I don’t really speak this love language. Sure, I’m a mother, so I’m constantly performing acts of service for my family, and because I’m busy, I always appreciate any help that my husband or anyone gives me. But if I don’t get that help, it doesn’t make me feel unloved in the slightest. That’s the difference.
My mother might have spoken this love language, though. I wish I could go back in time and ask her. She often complained about times when people could have helped her and didn’t, though. She’d break down in tears over it. Thinking back, I want to cry, because I never realized that she was begging for help because that’s what made her feel loved. I always thought it was because of her physical condition or because she couldn’t handle housework and five kids alone. And yes, I DID help her. After all, I was the oldest, and as every oldest knows, you’re Mom’s built-in help until you leave home.
But I don’t know how often I consciously thought of something extra I could do for her when I was a kid—something she didn’t tell me to do. (Thank God that was able to spend six weeks with her, serving her, a few months before she died. Otherwise…well, I just thank God for His grace and goodness.)
Before I go on to what I found in the Bible, I’d like to point out two “warnings” about this love language.
Those who love this love language can easily dig their own trap. Because they speak this love language, they can drive themselves crazy doing anything and everything for their family. The problem is that then, if they complain that their family doesn’t do anything in return, their family is left thinking, “What is there left to do? You do it all! I was going to do ____ for you, but you got to it first!”
When we speak this love language, we must also remember that acts of service done in the wrong way or at the wrong times can spoil children, invite others to take advantage of us, and sometimes downright mess up real-life situations. (Like when some well-intentioned person at a four-way-stop tries to let you go ahead of them, and winds up confusing you and three other drivers.) Therefore, acts of service must always be weighed against what God says is good for that person. We never want our acts of service to deprive someone from learning a life skill, keep them from accepting consequences, or harm the process of maturity. For example, if a child sins and you want to show them you love them anyway, the wrong way to show love is to take away the consequence. The right way might be to do something absolutely unrelated, separate from the consequence.
I share these warnings because these tainted views can also affect our viewpoint of why, how, and when God does things for us. We can sometimes be accused of acting like spoiled children, expecting God to spoil us even more “if He loves us.” We cannot do that. We must always be willing to trust His vision, His way, and His knowledge of everything that we cannot see.
So! What acts of service has God done for us?
The obvious one is He sent Jesus to die for us. But there are so many beautiful things that His death and resurrection encompass. Those are what I wanted to find…and somehow, as I said, I was having a hard time finding how to express what is often thought of and felt in such a vague way.
But then the Twenty-Third Psalm popped into my head, and God suddenly laid out several panoramas before me.
We all know the psalm of the Good Shepherd: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…” So instead of posting it here, I’m going to attempt to describe the pictures that God showed me, moving through this psalm and cross-referencing other beautiful, powerful verses and posts where I’ve gone more in-depth in what God’s shown me.
v. 1 – The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
v. 2 – He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters.
v. 3 – He restores my soul;
The path of righteousness may be hard and may appear uncertain and dangerous. But He never expected me to blaze this trail on my own. Instead, He went out of His way to blaze the trail for me and to write a guidebook giving me everything I need to know. And if that wasn’t enough, He has returned to walk it with me every step of the way, even explaining what the guidebook means.
v. 4 – Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me;
v. 5 – You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You have anointed my head with oil; My cup overflows.
v. 6 – Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life, And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Hi Katie. Great thoughts. Acts of Service is one of my top love languages (along with Quality time) so I was really looking forward to seeing your perspective on it. I like the way you pointed out the difference between our duties and our desire to serve. Too often, I allow those around me to take for granted the extra things I do to the point where they've moved from the desire column into the duties column. As you pointed out, this can spoil people, but it also takes away some of my joy in performing the service. Since you've already put so much thought into this, I'm wondering if you have any ideas of how to correct his pattern?
Wow. That's a difficult question, Michelle. I know it's not as easy as "just stop."
My thoughts (for what they're worth) are:
Obviously seek God first, since how to back off is probably different for different people and different circumstances.
If those you're "doing for" are under your authority, start designating jobs.
If they're neither over you nor under you, maybe politely let the person(s) know when you're not going to be able to do whatever it is that time. If they need a reason, maybe a simple explanation that God is asking you to back off (if He is) would work.
If the person you're "doing for" is above you in the authority chain, and they've come to think of what you're doing as "your job"…well, that's the most difficult, I'd think. The first thing that I, personally, would do is remember that Jesus was the servant of all and, therefore, I must always have a WILLING heart. If my heart was wrong…if I was feeling resentful or begrudging, then I would consider it my duty to get my heart totally right before I ever did a think to change circumstances, because it's ALWAYS more important to have your heart right, than to have your circumstances right. Often God can't (or won't) fix circumstances until after our heart is fixed.
Once I knew my heart was right, I would look for times when God gave me the freedom to politely ask the one in authority for help, leaving them (and God) free to answer no as often and as repeatedly as God saw fit. This simple request, however, would be the signal that you no longer consider it to be your duty to do it as a matter of course. That's really all you can do, though. My experience is that it is not humanly possible to change another person's perspective. Only God can do that. Our only options are to get out of His way, or to get in His way by trying to do the impossible.
I don't know if that helps you any. Seek God. He'll show you. 🙂
Thanks very much for a thoughtful answer. I'm not the kind of person to let people walk all over me – never been a problem. But as you said, the heart issue is important. If you ask someone for help with something that ought to be their job too, and they don't give it, then you start to lose respect for them. On the other hand, if you never ask for help, maybe they're just not aware of how much help you need?
You're right…I need to pray about this some more.
Wow, Katie. Lots that I just said in my last comment, but LOTS that I didn't. This was so good. I love how you broke down and rephrased Psalm 23. That's been a mainstay for me in many areas … it tends to fight the mental battle for me better than most things … just start repeating Psalm 23 when my emotions are flying, or my heart is raging, or my mind is wandering. It is powerful and full of so much good fruit. Thanks for this!
Hi Katie,
I am happy to read the continuation of your posts about the love languages.
Your posts are deep and for me, always require a second, slower reading. You have presented this love language, acts of service, in a beautiful balanced way. It just struck me while reading your post that all five languages are being spoken by our loving God over us! And he knows just exactly what language we need to hear or experience at any given time.
I will be coming back to re read this well thought out post.
Katie, you are a treasure…I love reading your heart. I have been through a lot this past year… and God has been so real to me, allowing me to feel His love for me in meaningful ways (through the love languages!)
I also realize that my husband's number one love language was exactly this: showing his love for me through acts of service.
Somehow, reading your post has brought this home more clearly to me, and if there is one thing I really miss about Ernie as we are just one week away from celebrating his first year "homegoing" anniversary, it is his acts of service to express his love, care, devotion … to me and all of us in our family.
Thank you for how this post has touched my heart so deeply.
Love
Lidj
Annie and Lidj,
I'm so grateful to God that this blessed you, sisters! (For so you both are…one in the natural, and both in the Spirit.)
God is so amazing!