4 Personas of a Christian Servant

I was at the Grand Easter Feast 2016 earlier held at the Mall of Asia Arena. I've been attending The Feast Bay Area for three months now but this is the first time that I heard a talk from Bro. Bo Sanchez.

I'll go straight to the part where I got struck. It was when he mentioned about the four types of persons - the Go, the No, the Flow and the Overflow. I myself is a servant and this talk really helped me understand why I am doing these things for the Lord. Let me go through each personas one by one.

The Go person is that type of servant that just say yes to every service. He will always find time to serve even if it costs so much. He's more than willing to share all his blessings. Because of this, he'll always end up tired and exhausted.

The No persona is the one that is afraid to share his blessings. He wants to keep it all for himself. He's greedy and selfish that way. Still, he feels unsatisfied.

The Flow person is the one who experienced how it is to be broken. And because of that, he could easily relate to the others who ask for help. He always communicate with God to continuously bless him so he could bless the others. However generous his acts may be, he's still broken. His generosity leaks through the broken parts of his life. He believes that by helping others, it would complete him. And yet, he still remains wounded and unhealed. Because of this generosity, he ends up incomplete and still yearning for more love and attention.

The Overflow persona is the healed Flow. Because he's already healed, the broken pieces in his life has already been patched by the grace of God. Like Flow, he's still able to share his blessings to the others but this time, he no longer runs out of blessings because there are no longer holes in his life that leak them. His blessings are now overflowing that he could easily give to those who need them.

Personally, I have identified myself as the Flow person. I'm broken but not healed. I continue to serve even if it costs me more than I could give. This makes me feel stressed and burned out.

I know that through time, these pains and wounds will be healed. That God will help me to be an Overflow person - someone that has been broken but managed to stand up, move on and continue to serve Him no matter what.

We all have our reasons why we choose to serve the Lord. But we have to remember that beyond those reasons, know that the most important is the one we serve. It doesn't matter how and what we do for as long as we know that it is God that we are serving, we will always strive to be Christ-like.

Remember His Story

I was alone since Holy Wednesday as my family went to the province for a vacation. I don't have any plans of going out so I stayed at home watching TV and browsing online. I spent my first few days of vacation lying in the couch.

Most of the Filipinos are already in the province to perhaps mark the start of summer. They have planned this ahead of time - booked through promo fares, filed vacation leaves, saved money to go on tour, etc. I did not bother to do any of that a couple of months ago. I just don't have any plans at all. Maybe I would just like to spend the Holy Week at home to take a good rest.

After watching the latest episode of The Walking Dead online, I browsed the local TV channels to check any other shows that I could watch next. When I turned to GMA-7, they're airing the Tagalized version of the movie Son of God. At first, I was hesitant to watch it. While I haven't seen this particular movie yet, I was able to watch Passion of Christ before. Knowing that it would just be the same retelling, I continued looking for other options. I ended up watching the movie.

The Tagalized version of the Korean tearjerker Miracle in Cell No. 7 followed next. I've heard a lot of good reviews about this movie so I decided not to switch channels anymore. Like how the reviews put it, this movie left me with sobbing eyes.

The day after, Good Friday, I woke up around noon and was able to catch 7 Last Words on ABS-CBN. While watching the TV special, I realized that God has been calling me the entire week to remember Him.

I've been so busy doing so many things that I forget to remember Jesus' sacrifices for us. No matter how many times I've heard His story, it still feels like it was the first time. Son of God and Passion of Christ may have the same story line but watching them over and over won't easily bore you. In fact, it would energize you and give you a new perspective in life.

This Holy Week, may we all take this time to remember Him. More than the summer vacations that we may have scheduled before, let us all find time to communicate with Him. May we be able to acknowledge His sacrifices and be humble enough to admit our sins. May we learn to accept Him in our lives.

Let us all look at the Holy Week not as the start of our summer vacations but as a season to know more about our Lord.

Pride.

When compared with other people, we oftentimes see ourselves above the rest. When we do our self-evaluation, we highlight our strengths and the weaknesses of the competitions. We are being blinded by our own selves just so we could make ourselves believe that we are indeed better than anyone else.

Earlier today at The Feast Bay Area 3PM session, I got struck with the talk which tackles about our pride. It reminded me of the constant struggles that I have within myself. The talk just confirmed the pride that I've been feeding myself all this time. And that regardless of how much I try to force myself to believe that I'm humble enough to admit my imperfections, I still carry that pride in me. Why did I say so?

There were five symptoms mentioned by Bro. Adrian Panganiban in his talk 'Pride'. I made a mental checklist to see if I could be diagnosed with such and here is what I have figured out:

The first symptom that you have pride is that you always have conflicts. As Bro. Adrian puts it, conflict is normal unless you experience it regularly. If you often see yourself in conflict with other people on a regular basis, there could be something wrong in how you deal with them.

This first symptom brought me back to McDonald's Bustillos earlier last year. I was in a heated conversation with a fellow SFC (Singles for Christ). We were in the middle of a meeting for our then upcoming CLP (Christian Life Program). I was tasked to be the team head and that meeting was supposed to be a brainstorming. 

While I was sharing my plans for that program, this brother seemed to be testing my patience. He opposed my suggestions but did not even bother to provide any options. He just said that my recommendations are not possible. 

I managed to keep myself cool though you would know that I was fuming that time (this part of retelling may sound contradicting but as far I could remember, I tried to be composed all throughout the conversation). While it ended up fine, I have marked that day that this brother won't be getting the same friendly treatment from me. We could still talk but I'll always keep my guard up high when conversing with him

A couple of months after, I found myself in conflict this time with my new boss at work. She just got promoted to be our team lead and while I respect the management's decision that put her to that position, I just don't think that she deserved it. My other senior officers could've been a better fit. I just personally don't like her.

I thought she was rude, bossy and selfish. She didn't deserve to be a team lead because she didn't even know how to be a team player. And because I was so uninspired to go to work under her supervision, I ended up resigning.

And now under my new work, I found the male version of my former bossy newly promoted team lead. This person, however, is a fresh graduate but managed to intimidate me with how he talk to me. It's as if I was hired to be his subordinate. I never tried to befriend him after that moment.

All these three conflicts happened in less than a year in three different areas of my life.

The second symptom is you're always in a hurry. You try to be the best and successful the fastest way possible.

I started working at the age of 18. I was a working student. I didn't have to. I was a scholar and my family, I could say, could provide me the things that I needed. But I pursued being a working student because I want to experience how it is to earn your own money. Good thing I didn't stop in college. Had I stop studying, I wouldn't be getting this high paying job and would've been stuck answering calls from the other side of the planet (Please don't think that I'm degrading any call center agents here because I really don't.).

It takes a lot of hard work to get to the top. In order to be successful, you have to go through all the failures and pains that come with each downfalls. It's going to be tough and tiring but the journey, as you look back, is going to be worthy. You wouldn't know much until you actually experience life.So don't try to skip every single step. Learn to enjoy your journey!

The third symptom is your Christian life will always be a burden. This will happen when you live a double life - one face, you're a good servant, the other side, you're an unapologetic sinner.

When we're in a community like The Feast or SFC, you are being surrounded by people who are also serving the Lord and are assumed to be good people. But have you ever identified yourself when you're outside the community? Who are you in the office? At your own home? In school? Are you that same person that you claim to be when in the community versus that one when outside? Or are you living a double life?

I do. While I regularly share my service routines in social media, when I'm with my officemates or other colleagues, I tend to adjust my religious persona to match the personalities of the people around me. Imagine if you do this every single day, it would be really exhausting. That would make you realize that being a Christian is a burden. You'll start questioning things about your faith and embrace the convenience of living without thinking if it's still aligned with the teachings of your church.

The fourth symptom is you become judgmental. Have you ever experienced judging a person by his appearance and then realizing in the end that you misjudged him? I believe we all did. This is because we tend to rely more on our first impressions without knowing others well. Either we don't have much time to spend with these people and so we based our perceptions with them on how they appear to be on our end or we're just being selfish and just prefer not to know them more because they don't matter to us in the first place.

When we start judging other people without giving them a chance to show who they really are, we are being unfair. Because when we put ourselves in their shoes, I'm pretty sure we all don't want to be judged based on limited aspects. I too is guilty of this.

And lastly, when you stop growing where it counts, you are also harboring pride within you. Why do you have to be a show off? Why do you have to always announce your good deeds to the world?

When you become so obsessed with other people's attention, you are mainly trying to please them. You forget to see the value of the things you do to yourself. 

Try to do good things without asking for anything in return. Help those in need without crediting yourself in public. A genuine helping heart appreciates heartwarming smiles better than public accolades.

By just going through this Pride Checklist, I got a perfect five out five. It's not surprising though because we all go through these things in life. We just have to learn how to apply humility even if it's really hard. Feeding our pride won't give us any peace of mind. At the end of the day, we all want to sleep soundly, right?