MidAmerican Energy

When my family ministered and lived in Iowa for a number of years our electricity and natural gas were provided by a company named MidAmerican Energy. I was always intrigued and impressed by their slogan, “Obsessively, relentlessly at your service.” They used that phrase in every advertising campaign that I can recall, and I heard it so frequently that it has easily remained in my recollection.

The image it attempted to communicate (of the multi-million dollar energy corporation that supplies four to five mid-western states) is one of humble service to each individual customer. The personal pronoun makes it, well, personal, while the adverbs at the beginning declare the intensity of the focus and drive of all they do. “Service” carries a double connotation of the commodities that they supply to every household and business, and at the same time tries to say that their main objective is not the making of profits but rather our general comfort and welfare.

The appeal of such a well devised strategy, which very well could be a revelation of their corporate heart, lies in the fact that “serving others” is a concept that is held in high regard in every human society in history. From kings to generals to bankers to merchants, the great ones among us like to be perceived as being more concerned with serving than being served. But the truth of the matter is that they expected or even demanded service from others. Even MidAmerican Energy expects you to pay your bill and their company to make a profit.

Life, by its very existence, cultivates the idea of serving others as mothers care for infants, parents sacrifice for their children, societies cheer the “underdog” and our own physical structure illustrates the concept as each “organ” serves the needs of the whole. Jesus fulfills all the highest ideals of servanthood when He set aside His glory to take on flesh. He willingly give His life for the sake of everyone’s opportunity of salvation, even for those who reject His freely offered love.

The world recognizes the need for selflessness, and Jesus lived it! In doing so He provides for us the perfect example of the benefit of living to serve. Serving others completes the purposes we were created for as we make whole the expressions of love, joy and peace, repairing the destruction of selfishness and restoring our hearts with real life, the kind of life only God can give.

How exciting to be His people,

Pastor David Vanderpool