The Waitress is Watching
Evidently, this little freestanding building was the place Nashville’s best comfort food called home. Tucked away in a residential area with limited and awkward parking, my husband Chris and I decided, after several recommendations from friends, to explore what this cozy little café had to offer. We moved to Nashville at the end of June, and finding delectable hole-in-the-wall restaurants is one of our favorite hobbies.
A waitress with frizzy blonde hair appeared. She seemed older than her fifty years, with deep wrinkles and a posture of a woman who has spent most of her life carrying food to hungry customers. Her southern accent was thick as she took our order. When she returned with our rolls and butter, she grinned as she asked us a question that caught us completely off guard.
“Do y’all mind if I ask y’all how long y’all’ve been married?”
We looked at each other a little surprised, but I turned and answered her.
“We just passed our five year anniversary a few days ago.”
Her smile got bigger as she told us she assumed we were newlyweds. “It’s just the way y’all look at each other and act. I just thought you hadn’t been married very long. You seem so in love.”
Surprised, we thanked her as she turned to wait on another customer.
“That was weird,” I told Chris. “But I guess that’s a good thing, huh?”
He agreed, and we returned to our baked squash and fried okra.
I couldn’t help but think more about what the waitress asked us about. Now, I’m certainly not one to claim I have a perfect marriage. Chris and I have had our fair share of issues and problems and fights. We are definitely past that newlywed phase and our guards are down, tempting us to take each other for granted and let our selfish nature win over serving each other.
The thing that struck me most was the unexpectedness of the conversation. Here we were, in a small unassuming restaurant, simply having dinner.
But someone was watching.
Over the last couple of months, I’ve been meditating on a familiar verse.
The apostle Paul wrote to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:12,
“Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.”
As leaders in ministry, especially those of us who are younger, it’s easy to feel like the influence we have isn’t as powerful as someone who has a fancy title, a wider audience, or even a larger paycheck. Especially when your position is considered low in the ministry food chain, you often wonder what kind of impact you’re having.
Jesus had every right in the world to demand honor and fame in his ministry. Yet, Philippians 2 tells us that he “did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing.”
We desperately want to be affirmed and encouraged in our attempts for God. But we have to remember – it’s not about us. It’s not about the impact our ministry can have or our reputation as a leader or seeing our name on all the right blogrolls.
The spotlight is something our human nature craves. And regardless of if our name is ever in lights, someone is always watching.
It’s your supervisor. Your pastor. Your spouse. Your child. Your volunteer team. Your church members. The waitress at the restaurant.
You are setting an example, whether you know it or not.
Oswald Chambers wrote,
“The people who influence us the most are not those who detain us with their continual talk, but those who live their lives like the stars in the sky and "the lilies of the field"— simply and unaffectedly. Those are the lives that mold and shape us.
If you want to be of use to God, maintain the proper relationship with Jesus Christ by staying focused on Him, and He will make use of you every minute you live— yet you will be unaware, on the conscious level of your life, that you are being used of Him.”
It’s not about us. It’s about Him…and how we can reflect His love and truth to the world around us. It’s about living in His grace and extending it to others. We have to constantly remain in communion with Christ. Then and only then will the pure, unadulterated love of God show through us.
And we won’t even realize it.
