servanthood

I am reading this book on servanthood and I have run across several great ideas and fantastic quotes- the one from today is "Serving people means helping people look more like Christ not like us" (Duane Elmer)
I just sat back for a few minutes to think about all that means. I think that I tend to think of things that I do in my Christianity as "good" and that other people should eventually think like me :) but realizing that serving people does not mean making them clones of me has drastic consequences. It might mean that the people I pour my life into don't think like me, don't like the things I do and don't even believe exactly like I do. (i would hope that they would eventually come to believe in the core doctrine of my faith, but the way they live that out might be very different from me)
I am beginning to realize that serving means truly thinking of others as more important than yourself - even if their ideas are weird and hard and wrong to me. It means valuing them and not trying to change them- but serve them and learn from them and honor them....just like they are.
boy do I have a long way to go!