Everybody knows what an encouragement it is to have one's work appreciated. We do not refer to the unhealthy love of applause but merely to honest appreciation.
It is very hard for a person to labor on month after month, and it may be year after year, finding his work misunderstood, and not become discouraged. Yet this was just what Jesus did. No one, not even His most intimate friends, or His own family, understood Him. He could not talk over His work with any companion, and find kindly sympathy and encouragement. He listened to the woes of others, but had nobody to share His own.
Yet He did not fail or become discouraged; and the reason was that He made a confidant of the Father, from whom He always received sympathy. And He was not without the encouragement of appreciation, for God said in the hearing of the multitudes, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." (Matthew 3:17)
You will say, "Surely that was approbation enough; if I could only have that approval, I would not mind the lack of sympathy and appreciation from men."
Well, we may have it. Of Enoch it is said: "Before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God." (Hebrews 11:5)
It was by his faith that Enoch had this testimony, and faith will bring us the same heavenly commendation.
What need, then, of complaining because our work is not appreciated? If it is what God has given us to do, and we, like Christ, do always the things that please Him, we should be content and happy, even though all men oppose. "If God be for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31)--Present Truth, May 8, 1902--Timeline: II-2 (The Baptism)--Matthew 3:17.