In the past month I have read a lot of status updates on facebook that are distressing to me. I didn’t realize why they were so distressing, other than they made me feel bad for the person. They usually go something like this… I am sick of doing so much for people, giving and giving and giving and getting nothing in return. I am done with all this kindness. In many of my friend’s updates, there have been curse words laced through there too. It seems that people have started the year with the right intentions. They want to be more giving, more helpful, more loving… but when they don’t receive it in return, they get angry. When they put themselves out there and then nothing comes back, they get angry.
Well, I understand that emotion. When you get that feeling that you are being a door’s mat. Being everything to everyone is exhausting and usually isn’t feasible. Please don’t think that I am telling anyone to be a door’s mat. I am simply saying that when we do good deeds and step out of out way to help people, we need to be doing it with the right intentions.
The Bible tells us in Colossians 3:17: “And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.” (NIV).
We need to do things for God, not for man. And when I say that, I mean that we are “man” too. We are doing things, not because what we are going to get out of it. We need to do things because we want to do them for God’s glory, not for our own. We don’t want to do them to get something back.
I don’t know if you have all seen the movie Fireproof. If you look past the acting skills, it has a fantastic message involved in the story. Caleb (Kirk Cameron) was told to do this Love Dare Book for his wife and to save his marriage. About half way through, he was so frustrated; he mad her coffee, and nothing; he did the dishes, and nothing; he gave her flowers, and nothing… Finally, he calls his dad in desperation and basically asks how he can keep going because he keeps putting himself out there and she just isn’t getting it. It isn’t changing, it isn’t giving back to him. His dad basically tells him that he is doing it with the wrong motives. That Caleb needs to change his heart and then doing those things wont be so bad, he wont want them back, he will be serving God. Ultimately, this then leads Catherine (not me, but his wife), to Jesus.
When my husband and I were first married, we didn’t have problems or issues, but I remember reading the 5 Love Languages book with my husband. I was all about it. I wanted to read it with him so that he would start understanding my love language. Well, as we went through it and I did his love language, I would get more and more frustrated because he wasn’t making an effort to do my love language. Talk about problem making…
Before we try to change someone else, or make them feel guilty about them not doing as much for us as we do for them, lets look at ourselves and see what our motives really are. Lets examine if we are doing good works for ourselves, or to glorify God and to really make that person happy.
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