"But when you give to someone, don’t tell your left hand what your right hand is doing. Give your gifts in secret, and your Father, who knows all secrets, will reward you."
When I went out to water the backyard this morning, I was surprised to see only the moon and a couple of stars. I live in the desert and usually the night sky is crowded with stars; it can be an amazing sight. But this morning, the expected cloud cover obscured all but the brightest stars (which were, probably, actually planets). It got me to thinking. The stars that usually share these early morning reflections with me were still shining. I just couldn’t see them. But the fact that I couldn’t see them didn’t mean they weren’t there. They were, I’m sure, shining as brightly as ever, shining for an audience that was now invisible just as they were invisible to me.
They were still shining.
How often as Christians do we wait to "shine" until there is an audience? Forgetting that we always are living out our lives before an Audience of One? When we are in the shadows, when our lives are hidden by darkness, do we do things that we wouldn’t normally do exposed to the light of day, to the observations of others? Do we wait to be kind, to be forgiving, to be generous so that others will notice us?
Every good gift that we give, every loving act, every sacrificial service is always observed by our Heavenly Father. If our constant conversations are with Him, then we won’t worry about who else is present in the circumstance. We will express ourselves through love simply because it pleases Him.
© 2014 Robin L. O’Hare. All Rights Reserved. For permission to copy, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com
