I keep a short journal on my laptop, one or two sentences each day about an idea I’ve come across that might be significant to my life if I were to meditate on it enough. I read somewhere that returning to your first love, namely God, is the key to coping and healing from all sorts of emotional pain.

As I’ve thought about it over and over, I’m beginning to think that daily returning to God really is the key to everything in life, from the joys to the mundane routines of life.

At Compassion, we do a lot of things to fulfill God’s purpose of helping the poor. In fact, most of us love to do them and are passionate about the cause.

Sometimes, though, it’s easy to fall more in love with doing the ministry than with the One who called us. And it’s easy to get tired or burned out doing the routine or difficult tasks. Sometimes it seems like progress can be painfully slow.

So how do we make sense of what we’re doing in our service to God?

By returning constantly to our first love, I think. When that happens, monotonous busywork turns into purposeful, joyful effort.

Difficult decisions become better informed by the character of God. Relationships with coworkers and those we serve become more loving. There’s a clearer direction and path as we walk through the maze of too many good things that need to get done.

And the burden of service and living out the Lord’s calling on our lives becomes tempered with the knowledge that it is most important to rest in the presence of God.

John 15:4 summarizes with a beautiful metaphor what God wants for those who serve Him. He says that nothing can be done truly for His glory, purpose, or pleasure unless we remain attached to Him.

“Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.” — John 15:4 (NIV)

Prayer: Dear Father God, help us always to return to You and remain attached to You. May all our efforts flow from Your strength and be fruitful.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Carla Hoit is a support specialist for U.S. Constituent Development. The U.S. Constituent Development team works with foundations to obtain ministry grants.

Read all the One in Spirit devotionals.

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I was reading through chapter three this morning and came across something that gave me a hope and excitement about the future that I have really been praying for. Starting in verse nine, he is recalling that during the time of Moses, the law, which was death, was considered glorious because it was from God. But now, the law has been abolished, and grace, which is life, has replaced it.

In verse ten he says,

“…What once had glory has come to have no glory because of the glory that surpasses it (emphasis mine). For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, how much more will what is permanent have glory.” (ESV)

As you know, my internship at Compassion has ended and I am still here (praise the Lord) working as a temp in hopes of being hired on full time. The internship was to me, very glorious. It was a six week period of my life filled with the realization of God’s goodness, provision, and sovereignty in ways that I had not seen or known.

While I still work here and am grateful to do so, there is a strange sense of reality and life that has suddenly set in. I have recently moved into my first apartment, am paying my own bills, and this feeling of independence that I have longed for and strived to attain is now creating in me a greater desire to be dependent again.

I think that’s the point. Not to say that everything you thought you wanted in life will disappoint, but those things that we counted as glorious will, in fact, pale in comparison to what the Lord has prepared for those who love Him. As He progressively sanctifies us and makes us more like Himself, the greatness of the former glories will dim and the places that He will take us in the future will be even more glorious.

The thing about “glories” is that they come in between waves of seeming stillness. For example, I recently applied for a waitressing position at PF Chang’s. I am one of only two people I know that loves to serve at restaurants. Since I’m new to the area, I thought it would be a great way to stay busy, meet people, and earn a little extra money. I have quite a bit of experience and felt confident that when I walked in a few weeks ago, I would be training by the end of the week.

Two weeks and four interviews later, Corporate has put the restaurant on a “hiring freeze” because September is their slowest month. Bad timing. Stillness.

I have also continued applying at Compassion for any and every position for which I qualify. The response … *crickets chirping* Silence. Stillness. And so I continue to wait.

As I am waiting, I am working on a number of different assignments. For starters, I was asked to sift through hundreds of pictures and video clips dealing with the Global Food Crisis and to come up with a creative way in which to use them to communicate the depth of the problem.

Due to some unexpected technical difficulties and unfortunate time delays, I am now about a week and half behind. More stillness.

After a great “next steps” meeting with the head of marketing, I have been asked to write a more formal and “buttoned-up” business case for the my campaign idea to quantify the benefits and cost. This is what the decision-makers will use to say “go” or “no go.” Potential stillness.

It only makes sense that there must be times of stillness, even silence, perhaps in order for there to be times of proper praise, worship, and gratitude. If we have nothing to compare our former glories to, we would begin to think of our God as small and limited. In His wisdom, He reveals to us glimpses into His splendor, satisfying us only so much as to feed the yearning and desire of our heart to want more.

So, while I work and wait, and wait and work, I feel the Spirit building up within me a hope for a future glory. My hope and prayer for you, no matter where you are or what you are doing, is that you would also come to know and feel that God is preparing to show you another measure of His glory so that you would be refreshed and satisfied. But only for a little while.

The God of the universe loves us too much to let us settle for what we can see and understand. What a greater love though, that would continue, daily, to romance us and to lead us to a secret place, filled with greater glory than we can begin to comprehend. This is our God: the romancer of our spirits and the lover of our souls. Be swept away, won’t you?

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