For several years Carolyn and I, like Job, sat in a N-ash heap—a 1959, porcelain-white, Nash Rambler station wagon that looked for all the world like an inverted bathtub on wheels. Once, I suggested to Carolyn that we could turn it upside down, hang an outboard motor on the rear bumper and run it in the annual Nanaimo Bathtub Race. We drove it until it fell apart. Literally.
I remember the day we began visiting car lots to replace it. We looked at a number of shiny new and used cars and finally decided on a purchase. Unfortunately, the payments were more than we could afford.
We dickered with the salesman—our price and his price—but concluded that the twain would never meet and so made our departure. On the way out of his office, the salesman gave it one last shot: “Hey, you guys deserve this car,” he shouted. My flesh responded: “Indeed we do.”
Entitlement is a soft spot for me. “I’ve been a fair–to–middling person,” I say to myself. My accomplishments deserve unending praise.” It’s only right. That’s why I can get my nose out of joint when I don’t get the praise and glory I so richly deserve.
I was reading the other day about the Lord’s word to Zechariah: Go find a shepherd, he said, who will be dedicated to the good of his people, who will bring justice, encourage peace, prosperity, tranquility and harmony in the land.
Not only would the shepherd be unappreciated; he would be despised, underscoring the axiom that no good deed goes unpunished. What were his wages? “Thirty pieces of silver” (Zechariah 11:12), the derisory price they placed on an elderly slave—the price they placed on our Lord (Matthew 26:15). Should I expect more?
Mercy begets mercy, or so they say. We receive what we’ve given, but not necessarily from those to whom we’ve given it. Most of it will come from our Lord, who, after receiving us into his presence, will shout aloud before the assembled hosts of Heaven, “Well done!”
Edward Benson prayed with great wisdom, “Teach me, Lord, not to gather encouragement from appreciation by others, lest it should interfere with purity of motive. Not to seek for praise, respect, gratitude, or regard from superiors, or equals on account of age or past service” (from Prayers, Public and Private).
May praise come from our Lord Jesus alone.
David Roper
4.20.21
