To God be the glory

Today I received much praise from men – quite important men, I’d say. But I’m straddling across two feelings now – happiness, and dread. Of course I’m happy, my efforts are recognized! But I’m dreading this because I don’t know how I can totally submit my pride to God above. I should and I want to give Him all the glory, but I don’t trust myself to be able to do that.

I mean, I know the facts well in my mind. I know I had put in lots of effort, energy and frustration into that project. I know I did some things beyond what was expected and did it well. So by human’s standards, I deserve the praise.

Yet, without God, I wouldn’t have gotten through the many things in my life that I can end up here today. In fact, without God, I’d be nothing. So, no, I deserve nothing, but everything belongs to God.

I don’t even want to think about how I might deserve something, because I believe that’s up to God to decide what He wants for me. My job alone, is to look to God and say, It’s Your glory, not mine. I don’t want anything, because in God, I already have everything I need.

I know, I probably seem like I’m being ‘black-and-white’ here, but I really don’t think we’d gain anything (in fact, we’d lose badly) if we try to compromise the Christian life and fit it to our liking. I feel like if I take any credit because of my skills and abilities, then I would have already considered myself apart from God. I’d have already claimed that God, this is my life, it’s got nothing to do with You. I’d have denied Christ.

But by giving all glory to Him, by saying that even my secular achievements belong to Him, I’d be claiming that all my skills and abilities came from Him, and therefore, everything goes back to Him.

This is tricky business. Because some of us would say, hey come on you worked so hard for it, you should deserve at least something. My question is, at what point can I say that I'm not putting myself above God? At what point can I acknowledge my own efforts, yet not put myself on equal footing with God and 'share' His glory? I can't answer that, I don't trust my own heart. So instead I shall choose to follow the Bible. Didn’t Paul say something about all these – in fact, he ‘consider[s] them rubbish, that I may gain Christ’. (Philippians 3:7-9)

Now, please pray with me, to believe and follow through all that I’ve said. To consider these praises and achievements as rubbish, that I may gain Christ. To give glory to God, because it belongs to Him.