Definition and Rationale
Simply stated, a servant’s heart is represented through Christianity when we place other needs ahead of our own. It is evidenced in our lives by the fruits of the spirit or internal motivations for our actions. A servant’s heart impacts our mental health walk by affecting our relationships with others. As we become “living, human documents” (Boisen’s 1936 term) our interactions emphasize gratitude and grace. As we self-identify as one of God’s children by focusing daily on God’s ministry to us and through us, servanthood becomes an effective way to minister to our own heart. Both the community we build through our grace and gratitude, and changes in our motivations, support mental health.
The fruits of the spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, goodness, and self control (Galatians 3:22-23). Typically, these are developed by asking God to take our heart of stone, mold and shape it into a heart of flesh, and slowly transform it into a heart of the Spirit. This transformation occurs when God chooses to write God’s law and God’s covenant on our hearts as God’s servant. God brings about changes in our hearts, setting us apart as holy in different ministries of the church. It occurs as we study scripture. “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient and equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17 NRSV).
Biblical Passages
Throughout the Old and New Testament, a servant’s heart has been seen in Moses, David, Joshua, the Prophets, and in the Pastoral Epistles. David’s sins with Bathsheba, Uriah’s wife; Moses’ initial hesitancy to his ministry, and Joshua’s obedience when he told the truth about the Promised Land (Joshua 24:15). We are given hope when we learn the humanness behind Biblical figures.
Hope affects our mental health. It activates areas of the brain responsible for goal-setting, decision-making, and problem-solving. It helps us plan, persist, and persevere and it has profound physical effects. People who cultivate hope recover faster from illness, respond better to pain, and live longer. They experience lower levels of depression and anxiety. Their immune systems are stronger. Their relationships are healthier. Therefore, in developing a servant’s heart, we can accept our humanness, open ourselves to God’s transforming power, and build hope; overall bettering our mental health.
Practice of Servanthood
Some strategies for allowing God to develop a servant’s heart towards others are enumerated below.
1. Prayer: Ask and you shall receive. Seek and you shall find. Knock and the door will be opened unto you (Matthew 7:7-8).
2. Bible Study: Taking heart of stone, molding it into the heart of flesh, and transforming the heart spiritually (Jeremiah 31:31-34 and Ezekiel 36:22-30; Ezekiel 37:1-14).
3. Focus: Writing God’s laws and covenants on my heart, helping me to place them in practice, and transforming me spiritually – creating a new heart and a new spirit within me (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
4. Interactions with brothers and sisters in Christ. Example: Sometimes a simple interaction on our journey of faith occurs when I am given an opportunity to help an elderly woman at the store who is unable to reach a package of cookies from the top shelf. By helping her, I was able to identify how God allowed me to put into practice a servant’s heart.
5. Identification through one’s faith.
6. Struggle as an example of Christ.
Conclusion
A servant’s heart and our mental health are only two key areas applied to the mental health arena when we choose to identify each other in the image of God. Ultimately, one’s heart motivations are shown through dual focus of an attitude of gratitude and an attitude of grace as applied to our hearts individually and communally. We truly understand servanthood when we observe the heart of others in the image of God as they share their fruits with the world and with us.
By Beautiful Minds Coalition: A Mental Health Ministry