“…That your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly.” Matthew 6:4 NKJV
The other day, I went with my family to an experience centre to buy a mattress and a couple of pillows. On getting there, I spotted a type of pillow I had heard of but never seen—the memory pillow.
As I pressed my hand into the pillow and removed it, it took the shape of my hand for a short while before restoring its original pillow shape. I was fascinated. I did it multiple times and got the same result. “It remembers the shape of my body,” I kept saying to myself.
When I read the anchor scripture, I realised that we often think God is like a memory pillow. He only remembers our good works for a short while, and then He forgets.
This is why we take it up and reward ourselves. That way, in case God forgets about the good deed we’ve done, we would have gotten the reward for it ourselves. That’s a lie the devil wants you to believe.
So, how can we feel seen for the good work we do?
We all want to do big things and desire the recognition that comes with it. God knows this too.
Hebrews 6:10 tells us that God doesn’t forget our labour of love, even when it’s done in secret. He’s not a memory pillow that forgets your impact and contribution after a short while.
He never forgets such and already has a system in place to reward our work. So, it’s not our place to worry about whether or not God sees what we do. We are to trust in His wisdom and timing.
The flesh desires instant gratification, and this is what the devil feeds on. But when we strive to get that gratification now, we miss out on bigger rewards. This doesn’t mean instant gratification is bad, but the intent behind it is what matters.
Fulfilment doesn’t come from the accolades of others but from the sense of contribution, we feel. We know we’ve done something good when others smile because of us.
So, trust God a little more today.
“I choose to work and make an impact for God’s glory and not mine.”
When we engineer recognition, it’s the glory we seek. We indirectly tell the world that our power derived the result.
When we seek God’s glory, the results we get are bigger, and people eventually realise that we had help from someone bigger—God. That’s when His reward comes to us.
Leave a Reply