Why It’s Ok to Be Unappreciated: Playing to an Audience of One
We’ve all had days, sometimes years, of feeling that our work goes unnoticed and unappreciated. Whether at work, at home, or in our church, there is behind-the-scenes work always lined up for us. Sometimes, it feels as though no one else knows or cares unless we forget to do it. (Few people stop to notice a sparkling clean toilet. But you’ll soon hear complaints about the dirty one!) Parenting young children is where many of us experience the most years of unthanked, albeit absolutely worthwhile, work. Is it ok to be unappreciated like this? Should we find somewhere else to spend our time, somewhere where we will find more recognition?
The “Nitty Gritty” of Parenting and Work
Kids are ungrateful. We all know it. It’s part of what makes motherhood so hard. You wipe rear ends, clean up food messes, wash multiple loads of laundry per day, and cycle through clean and dirty dishes in what feels like an endless cycle. Sometimes your kids notice (my heart soars when my four year old thanks me for cleaning the bathtub!), but most of the time, they Just Don’t. You are just Mom, and of course you will take care of them.
Perhaps that’s why we moms are so ready to listen up when the world tells us that we ought to be doing something better with our lives. Motherhood is a mostly thankless job except for on Mother’s Day. We’d receive a lot more recognition and thanks if we hired a nanny and poured all of our energies into the public workplace. (In my case, if I dropped my kids off at one school and went to teach at another.)
However, the same thing happens regularly in the workplace. Somehow you might always end up with the job of restocking the toilet paper, or filing the paperwork, or cleaning the coffeemaker. When people we think undeserving get the promotion, when someone else gets the credit for our work…These resentments burrow under our skin.
We have to realize something, though. It’s ok to be unappreciated as a parent. It’s even ok to be unappreciated at our jobs. (The difference here is that you are free to find a new job!) The world goes on turning when your neighbors, friends, church members, and spouse ignore or belittle your contributions and service.
Why?
The simple answer is because we “play to an audience of One.” People around us, even our kids, do watch us and respond to our actions. But our primary audience is God Almighty, for whom and through whom and to whom are all things. (See Romans 11:36.) We ought to live realizing that we live “Coram Deo”–before the face of God. R.C. Sproul wrote often about this concept. (This short article of his on the concept of Coram Deo is absolutely worth reading.)
“To live coram Deo is to live one’s entire life in the presence of God, under the authority of God, to the glory of God.”
R.C. Sproul
It’s ok to be unappreciated in our work as parents, as workers, and as Christian servants. Why? Because the only thing in life that matters is God’s pleasure. His approval is all that we strive for and is what we have already gained by trusting in the finished work of Jesus Christ. We must seek to someday hear Him say to us, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” (Matthew 25:23) His appreciation will make up for all the long moments, days, and years of lack on this earth. Conversely, if we are living for the approval of man, we will someday find ourselves in a court where man’s opinion doesn’t matter.
For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?
Matthew 16:26
Reason #2
A second reason that it’s ok to be unappreciated in this life is that we are following the example of Christ Himself. Paul urged us to emulate the humility of Jesus:
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Philippians 2:3-8
Taking the attitude that others are more significant than ourselves will greatly decrease our resentment about unrecognized service! How can we complain when Jesus Himself stepped down from His throne to die on a criminal’s cross?
An Encouragement for the Unappreciated:
Keep cleaning up those messes and filing those papers. (I speak this to myself most of all!) We live before the face of God, and He sees what we do for Him. Your reward for laying down your life for others will be far greater than the temporal praise of men.
And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Colossians 3:17
A Final Note:
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