I felt a guilty sense of relief as I deleted my Etsy Seller account (an online marketplace where you can buy and sell crafts). I had tried to sell some of my crafts in order to make some income and have a way to donate money to a charity I loved, but it was stressing me out and, frankly, not making any money at all. After deleting my account, I used my love for arts to doodle flowers and write out some Bible verses. As I heard about friends with successful Etsy accounts, I began to worry that I wasn’t doing enough. Maybe I needed to do more or have more tangible results associated with my arts in order to glorify God. I felt that my hobby had to have results in order to count as a legitimate use of my time and resources. Do you ever do that too? Do you associate tangible results with productivity, and productivity with glorifying God? 

Jeremiah is a prophet who, as far as we can tell, did not have any converts. At the very least, we cannot see any evidence of his converts in the Bible. I wonder how he felt. Did he feel that he was less of a prophet than, say, Elijah? Did he feel that he wasn’t doing enough? It’s easy to look around, compare our work with that of other successful Christ-followers and become discouraged. But look at what God says about Jeremiah. He says that Jeremiah is sacred—set apart—for the work of the Lord. A look at the tangible results of Jeremiah’s efforts leaves us confused. How could God have set him apart for work that we can’t see? Clearly, God’s definitions of success are different than our own. God knows all and sees all (Psalm 139), and He called Jeremiah “set apart” despite the lack of tangible results.  

The humbling reality of Jeremiah’s story is that God’s plans are bigger than ours (see Isaiah 55:8-11). What if His plan was for my little Etsy account was, in fact, for me not to make money but to glorify Him though enjoying the creative mediums He’s given me? What if He is glorified every bit as much through lettering a Bible verse as He is through creating income? 

Regardless of whether we see fruit, we can trust that the Creator knows what He’s doing. Perhaps He has purpose budding just under the surface that we cannot quite see but that He’s tending to. Whatever you’re doing today, trust that God has purpose in the working and the resting and the waiting…and He’s using every bit for His glory and your good (Col. 3:23, Rom. 8:28-31).