Living Beyond Yourself
by Erik Rees
At about 2 a.m. on Saturday, March 12, 2005, Ashley Smith decided to drive to a local market to buy some cigarettes. On the way, she thought happily about picking up her five-year-old daughter from a church event later that morning. She had no idea her quiet life was about to change forever.

Back home, Ashley got out of her car—and was immediately accosted by a man with a gun. Hours earlier, rape suspect Brian Nichols allegedly had shot his way out of an Atlanta courthouse, leaving a judge and three others dead in his wake. He held Ashley at gunpoint, forced his way into her home, and tied her up.

The next seven hours felt like seven years. Because of the televised jailbreak, Ashley knew Brian was wanted for cold-blooded killings. She struggled to control her fear, sure she was going to die.

When her husband, Mack, was murdered in 2001, Ashley was a Christian but living far from Jesus. After Mack’s death, the drug crystal methamphetamine formed a strong hold on her. Eventually, her life was in such disarray that she gave custody of her daughter, Paige, to her aunt.

When Brian Nichols took her hostage, she had started rebuilding her life—working and going to school, getting her own apartment, and looking forward to regaining custody of Paige. Every day she read a chapter from The Purpose Driven® Life. Yet, though she didn’t use drugs constantly anymore, she still struggled with addiction. When Brian asked Ashley if she had marijuana, she said she didn’t—but she offered him the crystal methamphetamine she did have. Nichols asked her to use the drug with him.

“I really didn’t think God was going to give me another chance,” Ashley said later. “So what I did was surrender completely to him and say, ‘You probably are going to take me home tonight, and before you take me home, I need to get right with you.’ In doing that, God did give me another chance.”

Ashley recognized Brian as a man desperately in need of Christ. He needed to know what Jesus looked like and to experience his limitless grace. She allowed the Holy Spirit to take control. She served Brian pancakes and they talked, just like normal people do. They talked, among other things, about the Bible and The Purpose Driven® Life. Brian asked Ashley to read it to him, so she picked up where she’d left off in her own daily reading. It turned out to be Day 33: “How Real Servants Act.” Its focus is on living your life others-centered, allowing God to interrupt your life for the sake of someone else.

Ashley told Brian how she’d been widowed and explained that if he hurt her, her daughter would be without either a daddy or mommy. Quietly, gently, the Holy Spirit acted. Brian hung curtains for Ashley, then let her leave to pick up her daughter. She called 9-1-1 and Brian Nichols surrendered peacefully to police.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer once observed, “It is part of the discipline of humility that we must not spare our hand where it can perform a service and that we do not assume that our schedule is our own to manage, but allow it to be arranged by God.” Ashley got an object lesson that night in exactly what Bonhoeffer meant. Whether we’ve yielded our lives to God or not, this much is true: our schedules really are not our own. When we put them in God’s hands, we may discover—as Ashley Smith did that night—that interruptions, no matter how unwelcome, can be turned into opportunities to minister.

The star of this story is not Ashley Smith. The central character is a heart—specifically, a servant’s heart. Because Ashley chose to think “others-centered,” rather than “self-centered,” her courage shined powerfully under a pressure most of us will never know—in spite of her own human weakness. Faith gave her the strength to serve someone others might have shunned or cowered from in fear for their lives.

Ashley modeled the words of Jesus to his disciples: “But among you it should be quite different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must become your slave. For even I, the Son of Man, came here not to be served but to serve others, and to give my life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:26 – 28, NLT). Christ made it clear that servanthood is not only an honorable characteristic, it is mandatory for one who claims to be his disciple.

Devotional writer Gerald Hartis says, “Ministry is what we leave in our wake as we follow Jesus.” By choosing the servant nature of Christ, Ashley Smith left in her wake a powerful testament to his power. You too will leave a wake as you strive to serve others through your S.H.A.P.E.

Someone once said, “Your theology is what you are when the talking stops and the action starts.” What we believe is demonstrated by what we do, not just by what we say. Good intentions are not enough—they must be followed by deeds that demonstrate they are true.

As Jesus traveled, he served—helping, healing, and laying a hand whenever there was a need. He humbled himself in front of his own followers when he washed their feet—one of the lowest positions a person in that time could assume. He even took the role of servant all the way to death—obeying God’s will in spite of what it would cost him personally.

God is not looking for perfectly manicured hands. His delight is in weathered and callused hands that demonstrate a “whatever it takes” attitude. That was precisely the challenge Paul issued to the church at Philippi: “Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness” (Philippians 2:4–7).

Ashley’s story can motivate us to maximize our lives by living beyond ourselves. It’s not likely any of us will find ourselves in a situation like hers, but as believers in Christ we can count on a lifetime of opportunities to serve others and share our faith. Jesus wants us to make our faith known through serving others, like Ashley did for Brian—and like a man we know only as “the Good Samaritan” did thousands of years ago.

From S.H.A.P.E.: Finding and Fulfilling Your Unique Purpose for Life by Erik Rees

Editor's note: Ashley Smith's full story is chronicled in the book Unlikely Angel: The Untold Story of the Atlanta Hostage Hero.