It’s Monday morning. Filled with anticipation for Bible study with your new friend in a few hours, you sit down with a cup of tea and excitedly go over what you plan to read and ponder what questions she might ask. You’ve enjoyed getting to know her recently, and you were thrilled a couple of weeks ago when she expressed a desire to look at the Bible together. 

Then you hear the ding of a text message. She can’t make it today. Your heart sinks.

Sound familiar? 

On the one hand, your disappointment beautifully points to a growing relationship: you enjoy spending time with this friend and feel sad that you won’t get that time today as you had expected. 

But if you’re anything like me, part of the letdown you experience also connects to an underlying heart attempt to earn the approval of those around you and perhaps even of God. Having a Bible study with someone makes us feel “successful,” and when that chance to take a step up the approval ladder gets taken away, we flounder in doubt and insecurity. In unrest. 

As Christian women, we often forget our status as daughters of the King, secure in Him. We live instead as servants trying to please a master. We pressure ourselves to see certain results in ministry, or at least to be constantly busy with ministry. After all, He called us to life abroad, serving Him in another place… doesn’t it stand to reason that He expects results? But in doing so, we lose all ability to find true spiritual rest.

We forget that God bases His approval of us solely on what Jesus did on our behalf, not on how we perform. As His children, covered with the righteousness of Christ, God is eternally pleased with us. No amount of ministry work or personal discipline can change our status before Him as His favored children.

Are we called to work hard as unto Him? Yes. Are we expected to be faithful to the task He has set before us? Absolutely. Sometimes faithfulness yields earthly “results,” but sometimes it doesn’t. Either way, we can rest in the goodness of our Father, working faithfully and resting joyfully in response to all He has done for us. As Psalm 116:7 affirms, He has indeed dealt bountifully with us.