God’s Endurance and Approval-Seeking

Approval-seeking through works, usually requires some form of feedback from others in order to make it feel worthwhile and in order to sustain some sort of conviction that they are doing the right thing.

If a person does not get the feedback they need, they can start seeking that approval in subtle, or even in rather obvious and often annoying ways: “Are you happy with that? Is that what you wanted? Did I do ok?” If a sense of gratitude is not forthcoming from those people we serve, it can cause them to become angry and frustrated towards them. When this happens, they can threaten to withdraw something from the other person, such as love, appreciation acts of kindness and so forth.

When a person is performing works that are not motivated out of pure love, it will feel awkward, tiresome and cumbersome. For this reason, loveless works, when not sufficiently appreciated, result in frustration.

But we must remember that love never seeks appreciation from the other person. Love serves unconditionally without seeking appreciation or a reward. God is love, so when we serve one another out of love – it is God serving humanity through us and as we know, God does not require a reward or appreciation – so neither should we. When we serve other people – we must remember it is God whom we serve. See Colossians 3:22. It is not man who meets our needs – it is God. See Philippians 4:19 and Deuteronomy 8:18. We get into trouble when we mistakenly believe it is our boss at work or spouse who meets our needs. Although God meets our needs, He often uses a human agency for this purpose. The Bible says, “…men shall pour into your bosom.” See Luke 6:28 KJV.

When we feel unappreciated we can end-up vowing to withdraw ourselves from making such efforts in the future. God’s endurance does not do that: it is fuelled by His love, by His conviction, not by the gratitude of others. You can expect to be tested in this area, so when you do good things for people who don’t seem to give you any visible signs of encouragement and thanks – remember that the love of God does good unto others - even when it is not given a reward from other people.

God's endurance gives a person the conviction they need in order to do what they do, without asking the questions, "Am I meant to be doing this? Is this God's will for my life or does He want me to do something else?" We should not doubt what we do for others, judging by their responses. God's endurance sets people free from doubting themselves and from wasting their time doing the wrong things.

It can be difficult to determine if you are doing something according to God's will for your life, through logical reasoning alone. It is not so bad if you can see immediate, visible and tangible benefits in response to the things you are doing. But we cannot always have that luxury.
There are times when people can be so desperate to please God and other people through works, that they overestimate the benefit of what they do, fooling themselves and other people.
There are times when we can be doing things on a regular basis, which never seem to bear fruit.

A lot of what we do in life, if not most of what we do, is done with other people. When other people are involved there can be personality clashes and differences of opinion. It is for this reason that we need the longsuffering aspect of love, so we can accept other people, just as they are. If what we, and the people we work with, do not let the love of God define who we are and what we do – there will be contention. It is for this reason, that the Apostle Paul added the comments that we see in Galatians 5:24-26, after telling the Galatians about the fruit of the spirit.

God's endurance gives us the power to rise above self doubt, boredom and weariness – so we can walk in the Spirit and experience the fullness of what He wants to do in us and through us.