The science of serving others

Science is based on observation and experimentation. When it’s not, it’s not science. Serving others is, in this way, a science.

The hodge-podge experiments

When I was about seven years old, like other seven year olds, I performed “experiments.” I had the privilege of being home schooled, so for the most part my experiments were encouraged. Plus, I was inspired by watching and “helping” my mother in the kitchen.

So I’d dump flour and baking soda and raisins and vanilla and basil and other “usually not meant to go together” ingredients into a mixing bowl. And I’d stir. And perhaps freeze it. I didn’t have much direction – I had fun.

In the beginning, that’s what serving others looks like. It’s a hodge-podge of ingredients that don’t usually go together… with not much direction.

The deliberate experiments

Later, I moved on to actually following direction. Directions gave my experiments purpose.

For example, I remember poking holes in the side of a can with a nail, taping over the holes, and filling the can with water. I carried it and a flashlight into a dark bathroom then pointed the light inside the can. Holding the can and water over the sink, I removed the tape.

The water poured out the holes and the light from the flashlight followed the flow of the water. What does that mean? It means light can bend (instead of shining straight out from the holes). Totally cool, right?

This is when serving others gets productive. Not when we start bending light, but when you and I begin experimenting with a purpose in mind. That’s when we discover what works.

Start by forming hypotheses

For experiments to work properly, you have to guide them with hypotheses. As you know, a hypothesis is a guess about why something happens the why it does. When you make those predictions then go out and test them, you’re working like a scientist.

That’s how we have to work when serving others.

Why form hypotheses

The whole purpose of taking guesses and testing them is to discover general principles that will apply to a many situations. The scientist might suppose that gravity causes an apple to fall from the tree to the ground instead of the other way around.

From that, the scientist tests other situations and could eventually come to the conclusion that fruit, any object really, will try to fall to the ground. Not every fruit will fall to the ground – there are always exceptions (like if a table is in the way). But the scientist can establish some general principles from the results of the tests if start from decent hypotheses.

[My apologies to real scientists here who recognize that I’m way over my head talking about gravity.]

You and I have to use some of the same techniques when serving others. We can try different approaches, but if we don’t track the results or start off with any purpose in mind, it’s difficult to discover what works and what doesn’t.

Yes, we’ll stumble upon principles by “accident”, but if we’re not paying specific attention, you and I won’t recognize the beauty of the “accidents” when they occur.

Serving others is certainly an individual skill – you can’t generalize the humanity out of it. But assuming generalizations automatically don’t apply to people is ridiculous. The more we serve others and the closer we come to understanding how God works, the stronger and more workable our generalizations will become.

Here are a three favorites of mine to give you an idea of what I mean:

1. If you want to get, give

2. Reminders are more helpful than new information now

3. bondChristians live driven by thankfulness

These are all generalizations, but they help define how and why to serve others. There are many more principles like these. Much of what I write here is about exploring these and applying them to real, day to day living. From there, it’s a matter of fleshing them out for ourselves, aligning our desires with God’s, and diving into the trenches to find how they all work for His glory.

Serving others is a deliberate act. Learning it is deliberate too. Like science, it’s a painstaking process of trying and failing and trying and failing and finally finding what doesn’t work, switching our assumptions, and building in a new direction toward what does work.

Craziness.

Science isn’t easy. And serving others is messier than most. But like my hodge-podge experiments, it’s not worth much to anyone else without all the rigor of that comes with science.

“Test all things; hold fast what is good.” -Thessalonians 5:21

Serving Suggestions:

(1) Experiment. Try new things. Push in a direction until you know why it doesn’t work. Many of the guiding principles are given in the Bible. It’s up to you and I to apply them to daily life and find precisely how to best serve others. If we’re adding ingredients haphazardly, we’re not going to get too far.

(2) Have you experimented lately with serving others? How do you start? How do you find what works? What have you found that does work?