A SMILE IS ALL WE NEED
When the famous Canadian 20th Century Pentecostal missionary, Jonathan Goforth, was 16 and still living at home with his parents on the farm, his father bought a second farm.
He asked Jonathan to look after a huge field on that second farm and get it ready for harvest. Jonathan loved his father and wanted to please him. And he was proud that his father entrusted him with that job.
So he ploughed and weeded the field. He tilled it, bought the best grain and planted it in the field. When the field was ready for harvest, Jonathan brought his father over to inspect it.
Jonathan’s father came and stood on a small hill overlooking the field and said nothing. He simply surveyed the field to see if he could find weeds. When he found nothing, Jonathan’s father simply smiled.
Jonathan Goforth used to say: "It was the smile on my father’s face that was all the reward I needed. So it is with our heavenly father when we do what he commands us to do."
God is interested not just in our deeds, but in our motivation for what we do.