“But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you” (Matthew 6:3-4, NIV 2011).
I didn’t get it. I had just told Mickey that his cancer was doing very well.
He began crying, “I don’t care if I die.”
Gradually I pulled the story out of him. He was an honorable man who loved the Lord. When he was younger, his wife had left him and he had a child out of wedlock. True to his character, he won custody for the girl and raised her. She was bright with an ACT score of 30. He put her through college. Now she wanted nothing to do with him. He had no one else. “I did all that for her and now all she wants is my money.”
Do you ever feel under-appreciated?
By a child you raised, like Mickey above?
By a spouse, a colleague, your patients?
Might you even, at times, feel as though God does not appreciate what you have done for Him? At least He seems not to be rewarding you appropriately.
If we do, we stand in good company.
On the last day of Jesus’ life, when He needed most for His close friends and His Father to show that they appreciated Him, He was left alone.
But He had known this on the front end and He carried the cross anyway. It was not about being appreciated at all.
Long ago in his The Imitation of Christ, Thomas à Kempis wrote:
“If thou wouldst learn and know that which is truly useful, love to be unknown and to be held in no estimation.”
Jesus did not need to be appreciated. He was changing the world.
If we, in our lives, are shooting for the same goal with the same Lord, appreciation may be way overrated.
Dear God,
Let me serve in love in ways that only you discover.
Amen
I didn’t get it. I had just told Mickey that his cancer was doing very well.
He began crying, “I don’t care if I die.”
Gradually I pulled the story out of him. He was an honorable man who loved the Lord. When he was younger, his wife had left him and he had a child out of wedlock. True to his character, he won custody for the girl and raised her. She was bright with an ACT score of 30. He put her through college. Now she wanted nothing to do with him. He had no one else. “I did all that for her and now all she wants is my money.”
Do you ever feel under-appreciated?
By a child you raised, like Mickey above?
By a spouse, a colleague, your patients?
Might you even, at times, feel as though God does not appreciate what you have done for Him? At least He seems not to be rewarding you appropriately.
If we do, we stand in good company.
On the last day of Jesus’ life, when He needed most for His close friends and His Father to show that they appreciated Him, He was left alone.
But He had known this on the front end and He carried the cross anyway. It was not about being appreciated at all.
Long ago in his The Imitation of Christ, Thomas à Kempis wrote:
“If thou wouldst learn and know that which is truly useful, love to be unknown and to be held in no estimation.”
Jesus did not need to be appreciated. He was changing the world.
If we, in our lives, are shooting for the same goal with the same Lord, appreciation may be way overrated.
Dear God,
Let me serve in love in ways that only you discover.
Amen
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