11 Feb If God Gave out Awards, What would They Be For?

It’s awards season. There’s Grammys, Oscars, Baftas, AACTAs and Golden Globes (no, you don’t need to know what they all are)… The ceremonies are exclusive and lavish and replete with red carpets, glamourous celebs and hold-your-breath moments. It’s a time to honour those who have excelled in the fields of the arts.

This week I also received an award. And while there were no red carpets or gold statuettes (and my dress was mass produced, designed by no-one in particular), it was my special moment to be recognised as ‘Alumnus of the Year’ by the College who trained me back many years ago (thank you Harvest Bible College!)

I also had the opportunity to give a short speech and while I was preparing what to say, I wondered how God saw the occasion… If God gave out awards, what would they be for?

We recognise what we see. Excellence, skill, talent. We reward on the basis of productivity and output and fruit. It’s good, but it’s not everything. Not even the most important thing.

The big difference is that God rewards what we don’t see. He watches what happens when nobody is there to take a photograph and applaud the speech.

He rewards openly what is done in secret (Matthew 6:4).

So people may see a successful itinerant ministry – opportunity to travel around the world and ski on the sidelines, but they don’t see the journey that led there. The moments in secret where God worked to consecrate the heart.

Like the time God called me to resign from a job I loved and spend my house deposit on ministry training. Like the time he asked me to leave my church family and start a new church where there were no resources. Like the time he told me to leave my home to move interstate to an unknown city.

You know those times. You’ve had your own. The places where you have crawled into a dark corner, crying out; “Not my will, but yours be done”. It’s the path of discipleship that God calls all of us on. It cuts and bleeds. It’s death to self and it calls for everything.

But the joy is that in time God will move his hand and lavishly reward. It will be your own Oscar moment and you will know it. The reward may not look like a plaque on a wall or a trip to Switzerland, but it will be God-given and it will be more than worth it.