But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you. --- Philippians 2:17
What if Jesus asks you to be completely unimportant and insignificant? What if He chooses to use you as a conduit to set someone else up to complete His work? What if He piles glory and honor on somebody half as faithful to a relationship with Him as you are? Can you take it?
In a culture that prides itself on self-made-success-stories, there's little incentive to think small.
Now, in our saner moments, we probably understand God sees and treasures those behind-the-scenes-sacrifices, and somewhere in the grand scheme of things, He'll balance it out. But what if He doesn't? What if we get to heaven and the same people who took victory laps down here get to take victory laps up there? Can we live with that?
One thing I've learned over time is I'm not indispensable. Every project I think can't survive without me does quite fine in my absence, thank you. And whereas I used to be right smack in the middle of exciting, fruit-producing faith races, now I find more often than not that my best use is coaching other racers, or cheering them as they continue to run, and even sometimes just passing water bottles to them as they whip by without noticing who it is that handed them the water..
Until we realize our value comes from our relationship with God, and not with the highs and lows of the fruit we get credited with producing, we're always going to have roller-coaster spiritual journeys...high when the fruit is flowing and people are noticing; low when the fruit is hidden or someone else is getting the glory. The Apostle Paul understood this better than most of us; contentment comes from our actual relationship with God. Nothing else...nothing else...goes into God's "I-love-you" equation but that. If we invest in the relationship with Him, He'll accomplish everything He wants to accomplish in and through us...even if that means we get to be "nobodies" from an earthly perspective. In fact, God is always delighted with us when we happily serve in hidden ways..
It's a no-whining zone, though. Whining not only robs us of the joy of the moment of service, it also robs Him of our worship and respect..
The best and most valuable team member is always the one willing to surrender credit and glory in favor of humility and collaboration. Relationship trumps activity in God's economy. When we learn to love Him and love others more than the goals and accomplishments we pour so much of ourselves into, we usually find God shows us new goals, new activity and new accomplishments; and our labors of love have both meaning and impact...because we're working shoulder to shoulder with Him.
Let the glory of God's presence bathe us in the humility we need to serve others in or out of the limelight.
--Randy Kilgore
Visitor Comments (2)