by J. Randal Matheny

Wang, a Chinese woman from Nanning, was surprised when a bus seat was offered her, with smiles from everyone around her. Someone finally showed her the note taped to her back: "Please take care of this pregnant lady."

Wang recognized the handwriting of her husband, who must have stuck it to her back before she left home.

We in Christ show the same care for one another. We seek to ease the burdens of those weighed down by their cares and struggles.

So said Paul, "Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ" (Galatians 6:2, ESV).

Even when they themselves cannot carry the burdens of the weak, Christians still search for means to help others, with the creativity of the Chinese husband concerned about his wife.

This is why I am grateful to be a part of a brotherhood that practices fraternal love, that develops daily that care for the brother who needs a hand, that understands that "church" means a community that lives in peace, harmony, unity, and forgiveness, under the benevolent guidance of Christ.

I have often had the sign, "Please care for this burdened soul," stuck to my back. I have often been offered a seat of rest, scarce in a world of selfish people. I have been given the knowing smiles of well-wishers who, aware of my burden perhaps more than I, have more than smiled to lift up my name to the great Inviter of the Light Burden.

In turn, I want to be a burden-bearer myself, for someone coming up the trail behind me.

Wang and I, then, have much in common.

by Don Ruhl

Why do servants exist? Why do the servants of the Lord exist? Is it for their glory or for the Lord? Psalm 113:1 answers the questions for us.

1 Praise the LORD. Praise, O servants of the LORD, praise the name of the LORD. (Psa. 113:1, NKJV).

 We exist for Him, not He for us! Therefore, our life's business is to serve Him rather than looking for ways in which He ought to be serving us. Yet, here is the amazing thing. He will serve us. Jesus prophesied in a parable, 

 37 "Blessed are those servants who the master, when he comes, will find watching. Assuredly, I say to you that he will gird himself and have them sit down to eat, and will come and serve them" (Luk. 12:37, NKJV).

 Wow! If I devote myself to serving Him now, He will serve me later? "Lord, are You serving me? Lord, You shall never serve me!" Oh, wait that is what Peter said to Jesus as the Lord washed the feet of the humble apostle! Eventually Peter let the Lord do it. Friends, live and die serving the Lord, and what shall happen to us afterwards, we cannot even begin to tell!

Don Ruhl 441 Damont Street Klamath Falls, Oregon 97601-2311