Who are you working for?

A few weekends ago, I had taken the dog out, fed her, deep cleaned and reorganized the entire kitchen, cleaned little girl's room, and made coffee while taking care of the Sweetness all before 8 am. Was he going to notice? In the perfect world, would he wake up, give me a kiss on my puffy, no make up, morning face, tell me I look beautiful and then marvel at the amount I had accomplished so early?

Would it bother me if he didn't notice at all?
Honestly, yes. It would. Why?

As I was cleaning, Colossians 3:23-24 came to mind,

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

Well hello there, gut punch. Work as unto the Lord. What does that look like practically? Well a good place to start is to get rid of that running tally mark system I have going in my head. There is no more I did this, so you do that mentality. I did this, as unto the Lord. And I will gladly do that as well, as unto the Lord.

This is so hard. How is it possible to do the best of your ability without seeking merit for what you've done? There is something to be said about desiring good results from hard work. If I work hard on a new cake recipe, I want it to taste good. If I spend a lot of time cleaning, I want someone to notice.

The only snag in this line of thinking is that someone does notice. My Pastor recently pointed out that we are so quick to believe that the air we breathe is real, but we don't realize or believe the presence of the Holy Spirit that is everywhere, all the time. Work as unto the Lord. Work hard to please the Lord. That should be even more of a motivation than to please my husband or my daughter or my house guests.

If I am truly working to honor and please the Lord, then it doesn't matter what others think. God is interested in the motive behind what I'm doing more than what I'm actually doing.

How do I accomplish this?
Let me first begin by saying I'm not that good at it, but I'm improving. I'm determined that will change and hopefully in a short time I will be able to say that I'm better and will continue to improve!

One thing that is absolutely necessary to making this happen is my quiet time in the morning. I need that time with Him. I need that sweet rest and rejuvenation that I receive by pouring my heart out to Him, praising Him for His goodness and faithfulness, and receiving my encouragements and charges for the day. If I don't start my day out this way, I am lucky to end the day with just barely functioning. If I want to thrive, I have to come to the feet of Jesus and just rest in His promises.

Something else that helps is scripture memory. "But I'm terrible at scripture memory!", you say. No, I am the worst at scripture memory. It's nearly impossible to keep anything longer than a day old in my brain. It's REALLY hard for me, but so incredibly beneficial. The Holy Spirit reminded me that I was working unto the Lord, but I had already had that verse hidden in my heart. He was just reminding me of something that I already knew.

Another really important thing is surrounding yourself with people who love Jesus, respect their spouses, love people, and dearly desire to change the world. This has changed my whole life. They help me not focus on whether my husband will think I'm sexy, and instead I am thinking of ways that I can honor and serve Him, which is just plan hard to do sometimes. I have friends that won't make me feel better when I am throwing a fit, but will instead flood me with truth and encourage me to do the right thing. It's just a good reinforcement on how I want to live my life.

The last thing that I do is sing. I meditate on worship and bury those songs deep in my heart. I sing them often, sometimes without even thinking about it. But it's good when you heart and brain's autopilot is still singing praises to God. It just helps me. It might not help you. To each their own.

I will never be perfect. I will never get it right all the time. I don't even get it right most of the time right now. But I'm trying. I'm striving. I'm striving to know more, do more, be more. I'm striving to honor more, cherish more, and serve more. I'm striving to sacrifice self and not give 50% effort, but instead give 100% effort, 100% of the time.

I'm striving to be more like Jesus, while still being me.
Not easy, but not impossible, and so worth it.

For those of you wondering if I got the response I wanted, the Mr. woke up, noticed the clean house and gave me a kiss. He didn't have to, but God gives good gifts, and marrying my handsome Mr. was one of the best gifts I have ever received.