3 Bible Verses About Serving Others in Hidden Places
Do you feel weary as you continue to invest in a calling that feels hidden and difficult? If so, you are not alone. Pull up a chair, and we’ll explore three Bible verses about serving others in hidden places today.
3 Bible Verses About Serving Others in Hidden Places
The days passed slowly the year God wove her together in the darkness. It can be hard to hold onto hope when your dream is still covered in obscurity. You start to wonder if the dream will ever come into the light.
When our precious daughter finally came to us, I could hardly believe a whole person had been hidden inside me for so long—a whole person with tiny fingernails, long eyelashes, and delicate toes.
Helping her grow had been my calling for what felt like a long season.
I’d been called to be still and let her grow strong and full of life.
Holding her throughout those first days reminded me of the reason some of our dreams have to develop in obscure places. There’s a reason babies grow in the dark safety of the womb. Similarly, there are reasons God asks us to serve him anonymously before he calls us to public platforms.
God prepares vessels for his glory in the darkness. The darkness prepares us for the light, and without the darkness, we cannot be ready for the light.
Let’s look at what God’s Word has to say about the darkness:
Bible Verses About Serving Others
Your calling might feel hidden today but don’t lose heart. God is working in the darkness. Here are a few things he’s doing in the darkness of hidden service:
1. God protects us in the darkness.
As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything (Ecclesiastes 11:5 ESV).
Consider the way a seedling planted in the April sunshine rests quietly beneath overturned earth. In the same way, God often hides us as he develops us.
He hides us because we are valuable to him. He doesn’t put us in the spotlight before we are ready because he is protecting us. He’s building the gifts until the time is right.
What feels like a long season of waiting very well might be God’s protection over your life. He protects what is valuable to him. He might be hiding you to develop you.
What feels like a long season of waiting very well might be God’s protection over your life. He protects what is valuable to him. #WaitingonGod Click To Tweet2. God uses hidden places to develop our faithfulness.
And he said to him, ‘Well done, good servant! Because you have been faithful in a very little, you shall have authority over ten cities’ (Luke 19:17).
God is asking you to serve him with your whole heart in the darkness.
Faithfulness grows in dark places.
He is calling you to put your whole heart into teaching the Bible to three women at your kitchen table. He wants you to be faithful to write letters to your lonely grandma or lead your local scout group. One day, when the timing is right, you will see how this training ground prepared you.
God tests our faithfulness to do the hard and humble acts of service in quiet places. He tests us in places where very few people notice. Be faithful in the darkness, and God will bring you into the light of the world when the time is right.
3. God shapes our motives in obscurity.
And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up (Galatians 6:9).
God uses the darkness to test our motives.
Anyone can launch into an exciting, new calling with a passionate heart. It takes grit and commitment to keep pursuing the calling when the frills have worn off and the calling feels like a monotonous daily grind.
Our motives are shaped in obscurity. When no one applauds, we are faced with jarring questions. Do you want to be applauded more than you want to be effective? Do you want to be famous more than you want to be influential? Is this really about helping others, or is it about elevating your own name?
~~~
Our baby girl has been in our lives for over a decade now.
All the while, I’ve chased all sorts of dreams in dark places. I’ve humbly and faithfully poured my energy into ministries no one seemed to notice. Nevertheless, my dreams are coming to fruition in these quiet places. God is moving. The faithful years of quiet service are bearing fruit.
Don’t lose hope as you chase your dream, friend. God sees.
Nothing is wasted.
Stay faithful in the darkness.
The dawn of a new day might be just around the corner.
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