"Leadership is a thankless job."
- A friend
To be more specific, perhaps I'll say that anything that requires you giving of yourself without personal returns, that requires you sacrifice for others and they may not even realise it (or at least understand the extent of it), is a thankless job. Leadership just happens to be perhaps one of the most common occurrence of such situations.
We live in a fallen world, among people with fallen natures. Not everyone you meet is the most loving, most wonderful person ever. Some people are just hard to love. It could be many reasons. Perhaps selfishly childish, perhaps really heckload annoying, perhaps it just so happens that a particular weakness of theirs is cuttingly glaring to us.
It is easy to give up on these people, to say 'I dont know what the hell is wrong with this fella, and im not going to care'. Funny though, God never gave up on us. God never gave up on this annoying prick who sits here writing this. The annoying prick who a couple of years back was probably one of the most selfishly childish and heckload annoying person ever.
My parents never gave up on me. Some of my friends never gave up on me (some did, its a pity). Despite all my flaws and failures, they never did. And I guess eventually they played a huge part in shaping me to become the person who I am today.
What if, today, you say to yourself, 'I cant take this anymore, I give up on this person', what happens? How would it have affected things? Honestly, we'll never know. We can't see the future. We can't see what ifs. Yet we know this, each and every single little actions of ours can go a long way into fundamentally changing the course of life of another. Knowing this, could you ever really give up on anyone?
I know I cant. I will get tired. I will get impatient. I will feel like I dont want to care anymore. But I cant. I could never convince myself to give up on another person.
What if you could change the destiny of someone else? What if you hold the key to it, and you dont even know it? What if you are God's chosen instrument to impact that particular life?
And what if you say no, and you forever snuff that little candle out?
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2 Timothy 4:1-8
I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.
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