I found this in an old country chapel in England and would like to share it with readers who may feel like no one notices them and no one appreciates the things they do.
'Others may, you cannot'
If God has called you to be really like Jesus, He will draw you into a life of crucifixion and humility, and put upon you such demands of obedience that you will not be able to follow other people, or measure yourself by other Christians, and in many ways He will seem to let other good people do things He will not let you do.
Other Christians who seem very religious and useful may push themselves forward, pull wires, and work schemes to carry out their plans, but you cannot do it, and if you attempt it, you will meet with such failure and rebuke from the Lord as to make you sorely penitent.
Others may boast of themselves, of their work, of their success, of their writings, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing. Others may be allowed to succeed in making money, but it is more likely God will keep you poor, because He wants you to have something far better than gold, namely, a helpless dependence upon Him, that He may have the privilege of supplying your needs day by day out of an unseen treasury.
The Lord may let others be great, but keep you small. He may let others do a work for Him and get the credit for it, but He will make you work and toil on with no one knowing how much you are doing; and then, to make your work even more precious, He may let others get the credit for the work you have done. The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch over you, with a jealous love, and rebuke you for little words and feelings, or for the way you spend your time, which other Christians never feel distressed over.
So make up your mind that God is an infinite Sovereign, and has a right to do as He pleases with His own. He may not explain to you a thousand things which puzzle your reason in His dealings with you, but if you absolutely sell yourself to be His love slave, He will wrap you up in a jealous love and bestow on you many blessings which come only to those who are in the inner circle.
Settle it forever then, that you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit, and that He is to have the privilege of tying your tongue, or chaining your hand, or closing your eyes, in ways He does not seem to do with others.
Now, when you are so possessed with the Living God that you are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this peculiar, personal and private management of the Holy Spirit over your life, you will have found the vestibule (entrance porch) of Heaven.
Author unknown.
