The Servant-Master Relationship

Many years ago during our family devotions I asked each family member to write down what they understood by the word "servant " as used in passages such as "Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ..." Romans 1:1. I was expecting answers such as, "A servant does what his master tells him to do." My son, JD, who was about 15 years old at the time, gave me a response that I had not anticipated. He said, "A servant has everything he needs provided by his master." That truth has been an anchor to my soul through several trials since then. For example, on one occasion I was invited to preach at a conference in South America. I knew it wasn't because of my preaching abilities, but the pastor hosting the conference was courting my daughter, and he knew that I would not let her go on her own. So I told God that I was His servant and that if He wanted me to go He would need to provide the finances - about $2,000. Within a few weeks I had the money from totally unexpected sources. For example, an old friend that I had not spoken with in years sent me a Christmas card with $300 in it. A young man who had lived with us for several months gave me $1,000. It was about a year since he had lived with us and I had told him when he left that he didn't owe me anything. I was happy to have been able to be a blessing to him. He had no idea that I was in need of money for a trip. At the time I had only thought of tickets for my wife and myself. When I called my daughter, who was in Israel at the time, and told her the good news, she said, "Dad, do you know that I don't have any money? I spent all I had on this trip to Israel." Well, I took that need to my Master and the next Sunday a deacon came up to me after church and gave me a wad of cash. He said, "A brother asked me to give this to you."

For the past two years my son JD has been serving as a missionary in a predominantly Muslim country in Central Asia. On October 29 2025 a missionary I was just met for the first time said to me with tears in his eyes, "You need to visit JD." I told him that I didn't have the money. He pushed $20 across the table and said, "That's seed money for the trip. God will supply the rest." I pushed it back and shared with him the insight I had learned from JD about a master providing for the needs of his servant. I said, "God will supply the funds if He wants me to go." I looked up air fares to see how much it would cost for my wife and I to go: I estimated $5,000, so I told God that if He provided me with $5,000 I would go. Well on December 30th I got a visit from an old friend that I hadn't seen since 2016. He didn't know anything about that conversation. We had lunch together and then he left. He said he wanted to transfer a small amount of money to my account as a gift. When I checked my bank account later that day I discovered that he had transferred exactly $5,000.