Volunteering or voluntold?

When I read the devotional from the Voice of the Martyrs' "Extreme Devotion" this morning. I was reminded of my own self centeredness. When volunteer opportunities come up in my life, my immediate reaction is usually, "Do I have time for this?" "Will this interfere with our family schedule?" "Do I want to do this?" A group of us uses the term, "voluntold" for volunteering that we do not want to do but are eventually required to do. You would think that I had learned how to have a servant's heart from my beautiful life examples of my mother-in-law and my best friend. But, oh no---I manage to have that whole stubborn, self-centered thing and it comes so easily. Okay, so this devotional was another one of those slap in the face moments.

This morning's devotion:

After requiring many hours of hard labor and offering a near-starvation diet, the Chinese prison guards demanded that someone volunteer to clean the bathrooms daily. None of the women prisoners spoke up.

Finally, Sister Kwang stepped forward and volunteered to do the rotten task. She saw it as the ultimate opportunity to share her faith with women in the prison whom she would otherwise never see. During her time in that prison, she led hundreds of women to Christ.
Kwang’s devotion was evident to all who knew her, but it came through much suffering. Before her imprisonment, she and her husband had volunteered to organize groups of evangelists who traveled around China forming small house churches.
When Communist officials discovered Kwang’s activities, they beat her twelve-year-old son to death. Still, she refused to deny Christ and even continued to build the house-church movement after her release.
Finally in 1974, the Communists decided to make an example of “Mother Kwang,” as her church members now knew her. She was sentenced to life in prison, put in an underground cell with a bucket for sanitary needs, and fed only dirty rice.
She was miraculously released after ten years and always looked back on her prison time as a gift—a special opportunity to share the love of Christ with people who might never have heard otherwise.

Volunteerism is almost a professional occupation for some people. They volunteer at their children’s school, help with parent/teacher nights, and help coach their children’s soccer teams. Volunteering for the not-so-popular opportunities can be more of a challenge. Often the volunteer spirit is nowhere to be found. Nursing homes, orphanages, and shelters are the last places many people want to spend their time. The smell, depressing environment, or other discomforts drive them away. But where do you suppose Jesus would spend most of his time? Nearly any volunteer position involves necessary and admirable work, but listen carefully for the opportunities less traveled and with those less fortunate. Try being the first to volunteer the next time one comes your way."

Years ago in a Christian book club that I was in, we read "Safely Home." by Randy Alcorn. It is a fictional story of 2 college friends, one an American businessman and one a Chinese Christian. Reading this book changed my life perspective. Before I hadn't realized there were modern day Christian martyrs. I reread it to keep myself in focus. To find out more about real life, modern day Christians, you can subscribe to the daily devotional via email from the Voice of the Martyrs website, subscribe to their newsletter, or read updates and prayer requests for prisoners around the world from their website: www.persecution.com . You can purchase "Safely Home" in paperback from Amazon or for kindle or nookbook from BN. I HIGLY recommend it!