This past weekend, I got to go to a Women’s Conference where Sheila Walsh was speaking. I loved how she told her story over the course of three worship and teaching times! Her Scottish accent was beautiful to listen to, as she described her experience with the love of God!
One of the things she said that really resonated with me was: “God is not going to say to us in the end, ‘Well done, my good and successful servant’ but rather, hopefully, He is going to say, ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant.” The call to faithfulness over the call to performance, success, numbers, perfect checklists, brings my heart a sense of ease that I needed to be reminded of so often!
As I prayed about this, the Lord gave me three areas to apply this good and faithful lens…
Good and faithful student.
Good and faithful steward.
Good and faithful servant.
We are continuously, humbly, and hungrily learning all the time. We are to train others as Titus 2 explains but also be in training. There’s no retirement age for learning, for listening to others who are wiser and more full of knowledge, and gaining more skills to meet the needs of this world. People are hurting. Do we know ways we can reach in and help or do we keep our distance because we don’t know what to do? We are called to be good and faithful students.
What is the Lord leading you to learn right now? Is it about health, friendships, or the Bible? What or who are you a student of?
More than controlling our bodies, our lives, our futures, our plans, our families, our talents, our children, and our marriages, we are to have a mindset of stewarding them. This is a huge shift for me and I love the freedom it brings to know I was never told to force anything but instead, whatever has been given to me, I am to steward well, by God’s grace, to present to Him. And He is such a kind God. I imagine it’ll be a little like when I used to bring tiny half-dead violets from the backyard to my mom in a little plastic cup…Here’s what I’ve been doing, Lord, I will say with my skinned knees and popsicle stained face.
What have you been given to steward? What is already in your life that requires discipline to take better care of? This isn’t about “having something to show for ourselves” when the Lord returns…All I will have to show for myself is the righteousness of Christ, period! But here’s the question: What in my life have I been trying to control, when I really need to simply steward it well for Someone else?
Lastly, exactly as His Word says, we get to set our compass to being a good and faithful servant. What does a servant do? They serve. They take the word of being filled up seriously, so that they can pour out.
Who are you called to serve? Are you maybe already serving, but need a fresh reminder of why you are giving what you give?
Whether it is suffering or stewardship or learning or giving of ourselves, every one of these things can feel so hard at times! We lose our momentum, it starts to get stale and boring, and we forget that God specifically asked us and called us to join Him in His work of love and grace in the world. But God breathes new hope in our hearts when He breathes new vision in our minds!
Galatians 6:9 says: “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest of righteousness if we do not give up.”
