An Audience of One

“Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.” Colossians 3:23
All4God recently reached the 700 Facebook fans milestone. Which was pretty cool, and somewhat mind-blowing when I realized that of those 700 fans I only knew 176 of them – over 500 people I don’t even know are reading and hopefully being impacted by the stuff that I put up.
But really, the numbers aren’t important. Yeah it is great for my ego that over the past 3 years over 9000 different people have visited the main All4God site, but that isn’t the important thing. What matters is that when I write, I write to the glory of God and pray that he would speak through what I write. After that, nothing else matters. If several hundred people read it and get impacted, great. But if people don’t read it and I have still written it to the glory of God then it is still great. Because we shouldn’t be aiming to please man, but God. We shouldn’t be looking for the praise of fans, but should be more than content with the approval of our loving Father God. We shouldn’t be doing things to impress people, but to glorify God. Everything we do should be for the only audience that matters, the audience of One.
I’m still working on this. Sometimes I get it and I know that all I have to do is serve God as best I can and let Him use my writing as He sees fit. But sometimes I want to force it. I want to write something that captures people’s imaginations, which lets them see a Biblical truth in a fresh light. I want to write something memorable, with a witty anecdote and a powerful closing question. I want to come up with a neat little quotable phrase. I want to hear from my friends that it has really spoken to them, that it has helped them, that it has given them hope in their hardship. I want to see a multitude of ‘likes’ on Facebook from people I’ve never even met. I read articles on Stuff Christians Like and want to have the wisdom and wit of Jon Acuff. I listen to a Mark Driscoll sermon and want to write something as powerful as that.
But those things aren’t important. What counts is pleasing the audience of One. If the words I have written are inspired by God and glorify Him then it doesn’t matter if they don’t have the same conviction as a Mark Driscoll sermon or aren’t as funny as a Stuff Christians Like article. God doesn’t want us to mimic someone else’s role. He wants us to be content with the part He has given us, and us alone, to play.
So here’s the application. You may not write devotions. But there are other things which you do do that you can use to glorify God – art, music, being compassionate, sporting talent, cooking…(you get the idea!) The important thing is that whatever your thing is, you do it. You do it to the glory of God. You don’t look to impress people by doing it, but you remember that you are doing it for God and that He deserves your best, regardless of if anyone will ever notice. You live to serve the only audience who really matters, the audience of One.