Give unto the Lord, O ye mighty, give unto the Lord glory and strength. Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. -Psalm 29:1-2

I work for a great company that allows a fair amount of autonomy and creative input from its employees; perhaps not as much as we’d like, but far more than any other company I’ve ever worked for. But like many companies, the credit for the most successful of those creative endeavors often does not go to the person to whom it is due. Instead, it is someone a few rungs up on the corporate ladder who always gets the accolades.

One of my co-workers came up with a training program a few years ago that went national and then international at our company. She received no credit for her work. Instead someone a little higher up in the food chain got a raise, a promotion, and a trip to Europe out of it.

This past year, I also came up with a program that has gotten a lot recognition throughout the company. I did all the work. I researched the best way to go about it. I came up with all the materials. I put together all the PowerPoint presentations. I gathered all the data. I put it all in pretty little spreadsheets. I lost sleep designing the lessons and poured myself into making it work and teaching it to other employees at other locations to make it work for them. From top to bottom I did everything — except for naming it. Someone at our regional office gave it a fancy name. The person who gave it a fancy name is the one getting all the credit for this program.

Once the recognition started pouring in and I became aware of the fact that one of my superiors was unashamedly taking credit for my work I had a choice to make. I could complain loudly and often until everyone knew what she had done, or I could sheepishly say nothing and burn with bitter resentment, or I could accept that my job is not to get recognized, my job is to make my superiors look good. The truth is that anyone closely connected to me or the program knows exactly who did the work. It’s only the people a little further removed from it that don’t know. But you know what? I don’t know those people anyway, and they don’t know me. Why should I need them to recognize me? I don’t.

It got me thinking about the things of God. So often God does all the work, and then we humans take the credit for it. Think about the process of soul saving. Jesus did the dirty work of coming down and humbling Himself in the form of a man. He willingly sacrificed Himself for us. He personally shed His own blood. Even when we think we’ve chosen Him, we forget that God chooses the vessel. He puts the hunger inside us. He gives us the measure of faith. He gives us a heart of repentance. He fills us with His Holy Spirit. You know what we do? We put a fancy name on it.

In Genesis we read that when God made creation, He made all these wonderful things and saw that they were good. He creates all the plants and animals and then He makes the creature created in His own image: Adam. Then Adam names all the animals. That’s what we do, we get to give a name to the amazing miracles of God. We name it the Parting of the Red Sea, the Miracle of the Fishes and the Loaves, the Winter Campaign of 2012 or the Revival of 2013. We give it a name so that when we refer to it later everyone knows what we’re talking about, but we didn’t do the work, God did the work.

You may be working hard for God, but never forget that our work as human beings is nothing more than a garnish on the side of the true dish. Our work is just a small slice that God allowed us to be a part of. He doesn’t need us, He chooses to use us. Let’s endeavor never to steal the credit from God. Give Him glory and honor for everything He has done for you, in you, around you and through you. Without Him, nothing in our lives means anything. It’s all in Him! Every good thing we have in our lives is because of Him. It doesn’t matter how rich or beautiful or talented we are, nothing we have is of our own doing. We can’t even take credit for our hard work because He gave us the capacity to do that work. Every testimony you have is God’s testimony. Every soul you’ve touched, is a soul that God touched. Every good thing you’ve done, is a good thing that God did through you, because He is good, not because we are.

He does the work so let’s make sure that He gets the credit.

In His Love,

Rebekah L.