As much as we serve the Lord in our work, and attempt to work at it with all our heart, soul and mind, we must remember that we will always still be human. Therefore how we go about our work and the work itself will always be imperfect and there will always be certain failings about it. The Lord has allowed this for a reason, and that reason is summed up in the words 'trust' and 'humility'. With our limitations, when we have done what we can (and even at times when we can't do what we hoped we could or even thought we must do), we must realise that Christ desires that we trust Him with being the one that brings fruit from our work. Therefore we should pray with words like this, 'Lord, give us everything we need to do our work, and bless our work, and be gracious to our shortcomings and what we cannot or are not able to do'. In this way we recognise that all the blessings in our work that we have come from Him. When we see these blessings (for we see continual answers to prayer), we also see that He keeps us safe and effectual in our work even when we don't do as good a job as we think we should or are capable of doing. He is gracious to our shortcomings and our inabilities, and shows us that we cannot pride ourselves on any gift or ability that we have, because both the gift and the results that gift brings only come from His power and provision. This also works humility in us, as we see all the things we work at as coming from Him and being kept and blessed by Him. He also uses both these things to work out what HE DESIRES and HIS PURPOSES, which can sometimes override what we want or think as being the best thing, as often His ways are not our ways, nor our thoughts His thoughts.
We are all capable of different things in our work, but all these capabilities and even our own unique limitations come from Him and are given and allowed for a reason. As much as the Lord wants us to work with everything we have, He also wants us to stop, rest and trust. This involves committing our work to Him, and also being humbled about the fact that we are only human and that our limitations are both God ALLOWED and also GOD GIVEN. If we don't come to understand this, we'll always feel a sense of frustration and disappointment in ourselves that God does not want us to have. Those things do not produce any fruit for others or for ourselves, instead they only make us fret and make us become frustrated with others. We will end up thinking that others around us should be perfect in their work and should never fall short in anything, and that ends up creating a cycle of frustration, angst and fear that again is simply not Godly, but just something that comes from our own pride, fear of failure and over-tiredness because we are working to make something perfect when it can never be that way, simply because we are human and the institutions we work for are also made up of humans. We must learn to accept our limitations and insufficiencies in order to be those that always expect to see His provision, ability and graciousness. In this way in our working we allow HIM to truly work and for the work itself to be truly His and for Him. What we cannot do we lay at his feet, and what we fall short in we also commit to Him. If the Lord could use a mustard seed of faith to do great things, then even the small loaves and fishes that we have is MORE THAN ENOUGH IN HIS HANDS to accomplish HIS WORK AND HIS PLAN FOR THAT WORK. Allow the Lord to make you small and to break you like this bread (humble you to see your own inability), and in this way you'll see the blessing and multiplication of all that you do and give to others in your work, including yourself.
1 Cor 1v26 Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29so that no one may boast before him.
John 5b19: Jesus gave them this answer: "Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.
1 Cor 2v3 I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. 4My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.
