I just love all the video clips and articles that people are posting on FB, blogs and news sites about folks who do incredibly unselfish things for others. The guy who gives a stranger his car. The one who spends every Sunday cutting hair for the homeless. Or the 99 year old woman who sews dresses for little girls in Africa.
After all, it’s not hard for depression to set in if you watch the news very often. But there are so many incredibly wonderful people in this world – and I need to remember that when I start thinking the whole world is only full of evil.
All of these great stories have me thinking that I need to be much more intentional about doing good. Then my thoughts go something like…
What could I do that would make a big impact like some of the people in these stories?
Who could I help in a big way?
Surely there are more important things I could be doing.
As my mind wanders along those lines, God reminds me... Doing good doesn’t have anything to do with making a BIG impact and it certainly isn’t about being recognized for it. It doesn’t tend to be flashy or fancy or impressive. In fact, doing good is most often mundane, ordinary and inconvenient.
In our digital age, it’s not unusual for someone’s good deed to be filmed and posted for everyone to see. But God knows that anonymity is really best for us. Doing things that are seen only by the Father is some of the highest, biggest, most important good we can ever do.
Here’s a quote I love from Hinds Feet on High Places (which I first read in 1978 so it’s a memory from my ancient past – time to reread this one!):
"The little wild flowers have a wonderful lesson to teach. They offer themselves so sweetly, confidently and willingly, even if it seems that there is no one to appreciate them...
All the fairest beauties in the human soul, its greatest victories and its most splendid achievements, are always those which no one else knows anything about, or can only dimly guess at. Every inner response of the human heart to love and every conquest over self-love is a new flower on the tree of love.
Many a quiet, ordinary and hidden life, unknown to the world, is a place of delight where the King of love Himself walks and rejoices with His friends. Some of My servants have indeed won great visible victories and are rightly loved and reverenced by other men. But always, their greatest victories are like the wild flowers - those which no one knows about."
~Hannah Hurnard
Like the guy who stopped to tie an elderly man’s shoe in the grocery store… he had no idea someone would take a picture of his kindness.
Lord, help me to love and give and do good and especially when no one but You will ever know. Help me conquer my love for Self by quietly loving others. Let my motivation be You and not the recognition or thanks I might get. How amazing to think about my hidden life being a delight to You! I want that.
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