WHEN GOOD IS MISUNDERSTOOD OR UNNOTICED
I was praying that night when the Holy Spirit said, “Why don’t you go to the kitchen and clear it up?” I went to the kitchen and cleared the dishes while I still fellowshipped with the Lord.
In the morning, I was expecting to hear “Thank You, Darling, for cleaning the kitchen”. I heard nothing but silence. It seems the good went unnoticed”. I kept doing it each night. It did not matter as long as it was done.
Do you know what happened? We had an earlier disagreement about leaving plates overnight. So when I obeyed the prompt of the Spirit to clear the dishes, she thought I was actually doing it to spite her so she toughened her skin. She had no idea that the Lord was teaching me to appreciate effort rather than seeing faults.
We were a few months into marriage then. It was my training school.
It is actually possible for you to be obeying the prompt of the Lord and you do not get the response you thought you should get. You wanted appreciation while God is dealing with the tendencies of your flesh.
Do you know that one of the things that God will actually deal with to use you greatly is the desire for public approval? There will be times you will do great things and God will do it in such a way that people will notice and yet not “notice” you. You will almost feel like screaming and demanding, “Don’t you see what I have done?” Laughs! That is God circumcising your heart of the desire for attention.
God wants to change the lyrics of the song in your heart from “See what Temi has done” to “See what the Lord has done”. Do you know one of the things that must happen to you as a child of God is that you stop living for yourself?
He died for everyone so that those who receive His new life will no longer live for themselves.
2 Corinthians 5:15a NLT
Think about Joseph. His greatest lesson perhaps out of all the dealings he went through was seeing the hand of God behind every move and eventually coming to depend totally on God.
However, we must know when it is the hand of God and not the manipulation of hell. The devil at times wants to give good things a bad name so that progress is hindered- such must be resisted firmly in prayers.
The point of our conversation today is seeing what the Lord is doing when you crave approval and appreciation and He causes you to be surrounded by men who seem blind to all you do.
Let the knife of His pruning rest on the branches of your fruitfulness and obedience. This is to ensure that the results you see do not become a basis for pride but a reason to be humble and say, “I am simply doing what the Lord says. It is not about me”.
Did you get it?
temilOluwa Ola, Eruwa