Gratitude, Blessings, Diligence
[By Teresa Harris]
As women who belong to the Lord, we have a desire to serve Him and His people. Yet, because we are women, we are often at a loss of knowing how we can serve since our public role is one of quietness and submission. How do we know what our gifts are? How can we stay motivated to use our gifts?
Counting our blessings can be helpful in our endeavor to identify our gifts. It can be helpful to meditate on your relationship with God and how it has specifically grown in the last few years. Those specific blessings that have led to growth in your relationship with God are gifts that you can use to turn around and serve others. Have you been blessed with a more complete knowledge of a book of the Bible or a topic? Teach it-one on one or in a group. Make it a habit to put in your ordinary conversations more and more the oracles of God that you are learning. Speak more of God’s words than your words! Have you been blessed with forgiveness and the putting off of a sin that had enslaved you? Seek out one who is struggling and share your story to snatch them from the fire. Have you grown in your prayers and your faith in God’s answer to your prayers? Seek a sister that you can pray with from time to time. Tell people when you have prayed for them. What a comfort to know when others have lifted your name up to God! Have you grown in your faith and peace with God? Share with a struggling sister the truths, promises, and passages that fuel your faith and peace to build up and console them. Have you been through some hard times? Use that suffering to see your brethren through a lens of compassion which can lead to better discernment of what they may need in their suffering. Do you find yourself more steadfast and firm in your conviction? Let others see that conviction and steadfastness. So often we feel alone in our battle for truth-let others know that they aren’t alone! Let them know that you are willing and happy to stand shoulder to shoulder with them in the battle!
Our blessings from God are not solely for our purposes and aid-they are gifts that fulfill more of their purpose when they are given! God so much expects us to be a regifter! A gift must have a recipient! Then when that person counts their blessings, they now are equipped to give to someone else. This even more fulfills the purpose of these blessings! This helps us see how gratitude and service go hand in hand in God reaping His kingdom harvest and how we are the field laborers! Furthermore, in examining these things, are there others who have been channels of these blessings from God in this growth you’ve made? Keep that cycle of blessing turning by being deliberate to acknowledge those who have blessed you with teaching, encouragement, exhortation, correction-so that they will be further convicted to use their gifts in service to others to the glory of God! Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift! Spend some time in 2 Corinthians 9 to see this beauty of giving and receiving!
Spend some time meditating on your physical blessings from God, how have they grown or changed in the last few years? Do you find yourself with more time? Who can you serve using that time? What about your finances? With whom can you share? What about skills? Who could benefit from your organizational or cooking skills or driving skills or companionship skills? Do you have a need now that you didn’t have a few years ago? Let someone know and bless them with the opportunity to serve you and use their gifts that God has blessed them with! Be aware and pull someone alongside you to share the work as you use your gifts to serve so that they can be empowered to serve more as well!
You may be thinking-I already know all these things! I just feel discouraged to keep serving! How can I get out of this sluggishness? Remember that “small” services count as much to the Lord as “big” acts of service. Jesus tells the disciples who have rebuked one who has power over demons (a “big” act) that we are all on the same team and that anyone who gives a cup of water in His name (a “small” act) will by no means lose her reward. Keep giving those cups of water! The smallness of the act doesn’t change its significance of service to God. Remember in the feeding of the 5000 and 4000, Jesus can do so much with just a little! Don’t despise or think little of the day of small things! Read through Haggai and Zechariah. The work of rebuilding the temple took years and they got discouraged with the small steps they were making to get the job done. God reminded them it wasn’t by their might or power that it was happening, but by His Spirit. The same is true for us today! The power isn’t in the size of the deed, but the working of His Spirit to work all things together for good in a way that is exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask or think!
Sometimes we are discouraged because it seems no one notices or says thank you. Remember we aren’t doing our services for the praise of men-but also remember that God does notice. The Hebrew writer reminds us that God is not unjust to forget the work and love that you have and are showing to the saints. He is accounting and safeguarding those treasures you are laying up in heaven in your service. Let this satisfy that need for acknowledgment and affirmation! Consider Joseph and Daniel who lived as exiles while they served God, yet they were both so aware of God’s presence and notice that they continued on and on in their service.
Sometimes we are discouraged because we don’t see results and so our efforts seem futile. Sometimes we miss the trees for the forest! We look around generally and see so many problems that we miss some specific small steps that have been taken in the right direction! I love the small parable from Mark 4 about the sower who doesn’t understand or know how the seed grows-and there is so much of the work of growth that happens under the ground that is hidden from our sight! Jesus further mentions the stages of growth from seed to full grown harvestable fruit-rather than focusing on the “delay” of full-grown fruit-look for the blade, the shaft, the head. Do not be deceived, God is not mocked, you will reap what you have sown. Abraham waited 25 years for Isaac, and he did not grow weak in faith but rather that waiting increased his faith! Consider Romans 4:17-5:5.
Sometimes we are discouraged because we aren’t sure if the cause is worthy or that the reward is worth all the work. Yes, and yes! It is more than worth it! Romans 12 tells us that to be living sacrifices we must renew our minds-this world will drain our energy and motivation. Fill it back up by renewing your mind in the glory that God offers us today as being His adopted children and citizens of His glorious kingdom-there is nothing higher than a Christian, I’ve heard it phrased. Remember that as a child of God, there is no greater position that one can hold in this world or the next. There is no greater group of people to be a part of than His church made glorious by His grace. Renew your mind in the unfading and imperishable inheritance that is laid up for us. Press on to that prize! Spend some time in meditation on what our hope is in the resurrection! Those promises will stoke the fire in the heart of the discouraged one! Remembering how glorious the reward is makes the work seem lighter and easy-for His yoke is easy and His burden is light, as what we suffer here isn’t worthy to be compared to the glory that will be revealed in us! In fact, it is that labor and suffering and diligence-even in that alone God is working in us that eternal weight of glory! So, rejoice in your suffering, your work, your labor, your trials! Knowing even in those things God is working His plan to reap a harvest in you!
God is the master planter, cultivator, and harvester. His kingdom is the master field of work. We are His workers; we are also His field. What an honor to be counted a part of this eternal work and purpose of God! May we increase our gratitude so that our eyes are opened to more ways of serving and let us renew a grateful awe that motivates our continual service!