“Why am I doing this anyway?” I muttered under my breath while moving
about my day. I was irritated. Not just a little, but a lot. Some days in
ministry, serving other people is not really appealing. I have days like that
less often now, but every now and then, I find myself asking this question
again.
On the surface, it’s a
sarcastic question. But as I pondered it, I realized the power of this flippant
question. In this case, other ministry people had disappointed me. Their action
scraped an old wound of mistrust that I have struggled to keep cleansed and
submitted to the Lord.
People hurt us in ministry,
even other ministry people. I am at the place where it no longer surprises me.
Yet something about people close to us being hurtful is still an irritant.
So, why am I doing this
anyway? The Lord seemed to burn that question deep into my heart today. “Are
you doing it for yourself? For them?” I fought back a bit. Of course I’m doing
it for Him—or so I think—until my heart gets this ugly.
But in Galatians 1:10, we
see that Paul had covered this before: “Am I now seeking the approval of man,
or of God? Or am I trying please man? If I were still trying to please man, I
would not be a servant of Christ” (ESV). Ouch. If our motives are to please
people, including ourselves, it disqualifies us from being a true servant of
Christ? These are tough words.
We cannot stop people from
hurting us. But we can realize that our primary goal in serving is to please
God. This makes the next step easier. After listing the people who had deserted
him, Paul concludes his disappointment with this statement: “May it not be
charged against them!” (2 Tim. 4:16). Can we do the same?
It is hard to forgive when
treated unfairly. But forgiveness frees our hearts to rise and love again, no
longer held captive under the power of the person who has hurt us. Forgiveness
is not saying that what was done to us was right but that we want to be free.
We can take them off of our hook and give them to God. We’ll find His shoulders
were made to carry the burden of hurt much better than ours.
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