It's the Little Things | Mark 10 | Crossroads Daily

if it means saving my wife. But am I willing to do the dishes at 9.30 p.m. So she doesn't wake up to a kitchen that's like flowing with stuff. So it's like, I'm dying, I'm willing to lose the whole. (laughs) That's like, maybe I'm willing to die for her, but I'm willing to live for her also in like over the late 90s. - Oh, that's good. - This is the Crossroads Daily. No experts, no perfect people. Just honest conversations about what happens when the Bible shows up in real life. (upbeat music) - Welcome to Crossroads Daily, my name's Caleb. - I'm Chris. - And I'm Vivian. - And we're trucking through Mark. Still together, we're in Mark chapter 10 today. Again, as we've said every day, lots of stuff happening, lots of good stuff happening. You could deep dive on like, five different things in this chapter. But I wanna pick your guys' brain on a specific section. So this is, at the very end of the chapter, Jesus is teaching his followers, and he says something pretty challenging. Verse 43, he says, "Whoever wants to become great among you, "must be your servant.

"And whoever wants to be first among you, "must be slave of all. "For the Son of Man," talking about himself. "The Son of Man did not come to be served, "but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many." So my first question, where have you seen someone lead that way? 'Cause that's a pretty uncommon way to lead, right? Being last, being least, serving other people. You run into somebody who does serve that way, and what was the impact on you? - Well, I would call it my husband. It's been very interesting as our kids have moved out of the house. We have one left, who's in the house. And what Jim does for our son is, he will wash his dishes, he'll ask all the time, "How can I serve you, how can I help you?" And I'm kind of like, "Why you admit it? "He's supposed to be helping us. "He's supposed to be doing..." But, and I can't say Jim's always been that way, but he has really demonstrated, for me, what it's like to be a servant leader. And he'll do everything from the big things to the smallest things, and without complaint. It's made me be more aware of where I can do similar kinds of things, which is not necessarily my natural leaving. - Yeah, that's great.

Remember, I was working for a company and this was a while ago, maybe 10 years ago, and I forgot something in the building, that'd go back late. And I went in there, didn't expect anyone to be there, and there was a guy there, who was actually a board member. Okay, so like a very important guy. What's he doing? Mopin' the floors, like he saw a mess, somehow the custodial crew or whatever had missed it, and so instead of calling it in, my guy went and got the mop out of the closet, put some water on the bag. - Good man. - And he was doing like, and that work, you know, clearly on paper, there's no work as below anyone, but that work is below his pay grade. It's below what he expected to be doing. And that's stuck with, I mean, that's obviously, it's still stuck with me, that was a long time ago. He was leading by example, saw a problem, problem needed to be addressed, he was the one there to address it. And I feel like even if the custodial crew was there, he still would have done it. That's not the type of leader that he was. - That's good. - And no one probably except you saw him. - No one. - Yeah, he wasn't doing it to be, yeah.

- No one would have seen it. - To be seen it. - And I wouldn't have seen it unless I hadn't been forgetful. - Yeah, yeah, that's crazy. - Yeah. - I think back to when I was in college, a freshman in college had lived in a house with a bunch of guys, and one of the seniors named Matt, he could have mailed it in as his senior year, been like, all right, in coming freshman, here's the things you have to do for the seniors. But he made it his mission to just love and care for all the freshman guys and underclassmen who were coming in. And I feel like the way I saw that most providently is he was so quick to always be asking questions about us. And he had all this wisdom, he could impart on us at all times, like all this experience he had. But he just was constantly more interested in our lives than talking about his own. And I still feel like I try to, like I feel like his name comes in mind every time I'm in a conversation where I'm like, I'm tempted to just be, 'cause we all want to talk about ourselves at the end of the day. Even the most shy, reserved person, we want other people to know about our lives. Like the dumb stuff, the serious stuff,

and he just taught me like it's more freeing and better and more life giving to be someone who is more interested in others than about yourself. - That's good, so good. - Yeah, totally. Well, those people obviously had an impact on us. And this is how Jesus tells us to lead, whether we are the CFO or CEO or you're just leading your friends or your house or whatever. And this is how Jesus led. Where's God pressing on you to be doing that in your life? To be serving other people? To be putting yourself last or putting yourself lower? Maybe even then you need to be, or should be on paper. Where's God pressing you to do that? I'll share an example. For work, I lead a team of people. And we were doing this event. And there's a guy on my team that was responsible for the event. But he works for me, but when we showed up at the event, I was like, OK, how can I just be helpful? Tell me what to do. And so it made me try to be a good follower for him so that the small things that he needed someone to run an err and he needed someone to move these papers over there or take the stuff down that I would just say yes. I would just say yes to those different things. And so it's kind of leading from behind. And it's also allowing other people

to know that you're supporting them, even though they know you could step in and be in the front. So trying to do that more. Great. One of the things you guys are pressing on me is to just give it a beat before I open my mouth. Just give it a beat, man. I think everyone is going to be like that's right. Yeah, and it's hard, right? And I'm thinking that applies everywhere everywhere. But I was thinking specifically at work, I'm on some creative teams. And I love having creative ideas. And I love having the good idea, like sharing the meeting. Oh, that's the thing we'll do. That's really good. And I can be so quick to do that. They're not all good ideas, by any means. But I can be so quick to share that I think it cuts other people out. Right. And so that's like, take a beat, man. Let every other people share first. I'm not saying don't share, but let other people process. Let other people take a turn at the wheel, you know, instead of being like, my ideas are the best, and I'm going to drive this ship. Right. So yeah, that's good. That's really good. I feel like with what you were saying, Vivian,

like the leadership can often be like the compounding of 1,000 tiny moments, as opposed to just the one big show of doing something that will grab everyone's attention. And I feel like I can lead in some ways that-- in serving ways where it's like, I'm going to clearly get recognition from something. Like, I will jump in front of a bullet if it means saving my wife and being a leader and serving that way. But it's like, but am I willing to do the dishes at 9.30 PM? So she doesn't wake up to a kitchen that's like flowing with stuff. So it's like, I'm dying. Like, I'm willing to lose the whole. That's like, maybe I'm willing to die for her, but I'm willing to live for her also in like a really tiny place. Oh, that's good. Yeah. But it's like, man, I have to constantly push against this part of me that just wants comfortability. Or if I do serve or lead, it has to be in a way that will get recognized or is like really showy and big. And not like, I'm going to pick up the house. I'm going to, like, voluntarily step to serve first in areas that no one may know about. Like, my wife probably won't even see, like, think twice. Like, who did the dishes? I don't know. Was it me? Is it her?

Like, but just-- It was the dish ferries. It was the dish ferries. And being OK with that and not even if she doesn't say anything. Exactly. And if she doesn't, say, Chris, you're such a good husband. Exactly. And so that's, yeah, a lot of small moments of leadership. I feel like it's what the Lord is pushing me towards and not just swinging for the fences. And which is good too, but not only sticking to the ones that are going to get me some recognition. Yeah, man. Well, that's a good-- that's got me. It's really interesting Jesus kind of finishes the chapter with this because he starts with allowing a bunch of little children come to him. And I don't know if anything from that story stuck out to you guys. But I feel like it's a great bookend to what he's saying here. Because in that culture, even much less than ours, children were not valued, not thought of as important, not really not given the time of day. And Jesus is like, no, stop stopping them from getting to me. And I want to spend time with him. He prays over them. He blesses them. And they are a picture of the least, right? And it's almost like the way we get to Jesus is faith like a child is from the scriptures, right?

But also just being like a child who is the least, the least important. Maybe the worst idea is maybe the most whatever. There's part of our faith that grows when we push ourselves down the ladder. We all know how they do. True. So that's your challenge for the day. Find a way to bring yourself down just a little bit. It's not because you're not valuable. It's not because the guy doesn't love you. It's not because you're not worth it. It's because you're choosing to sacrifice for someone else is good. All right. That's how Jesus lived. And as we follow him, that should increasingly be the way that we live. So some simple way, small way or big way, put yourself lower than somebody else and see how God shows up in that. We'll see you next time. [MUSIC]