The Work That Doesn’t Feel Important
For a long while, I felt like the work I did wasn’t good enough. I compared my work to what others were doing and found it lacking. I couldn’t enjoy my work because I was always on the lookout for the labor I’d do tomorrow that had a greater impact. That looked more like the potential everyone saw in me.
Today, I will share why I felt the need to compare my work to the work of others. And what God used those experiences to teach me about what He is doing. My hope is that as I share, you will see yourself in my stories and heed the lessons I missed. Buckle up! I have a lot of stories to share.
Why I Couldn’t Enjoy My Assignment
There was in a season where God used the role, He had given me to refine one of my gifts. But I could not see it because I was so focused on thinking that the work I was doing wasn’t as important as the work I wanted to do.
As a people-pleasing youth leader, I did too much. I stepped into roles I had no business stepping into. I was on the youth ministerial board. I sang on the choir. I led praise and worship. I taught Sunday school. I ran the annual youth newsletter. I also volunteered as an English teacher at the church evening school. So many things.
The thing about it is I agreed to all of those roles for two reasons:
First – I felt guilty saying no. I didn’t have the courage to say no to things that I didn’t believe I should be doing. I sometimes felt like I was people’s only option. Years later, I say the pride behind that belief. I shudder to think of the assignments I blocked because I stepped into roles that weren’t mine to fill.
Second – I had low self-worth and didn’t know who I was. So, I did the opposite of what Peter instructed in 1 Peter 5:2. I cared for the flock because of what I hoped to get out of it. I worked hard to be important, look important, and get the attention of leaders so they could see that I was important and make me even more important.
It was an ego boost to know that I was needed for something. It made me feel important and valued. So, even when the impostor syndrome showed up, I tried hard to show other people I was important. I tried to be successful by other people’s standards, so I could get “praises” and more opportunities to be “successful”. That’s what made me feel like I did something important. That I was someone important.
Chasing Titles While Missing My Calling
You see, I had not yet caught a vision of who I am in Christ. I desperately needed to feel like a success, so, I grasped on to what the church labeled as success – being a minister. That was my ultimate goal. I didn’t want to do the work of a minister. I wanted to have the title. I wanted to be called evangelist. I wanted to be called missionary.
I would get upset when other people got the titles I desperately craved. “I’m doing all of these things. And yet people are getting the titles I desperately desire but they’re doing half the things I was doing.” You see that nasty Pharoah syndrome at work? I was willing to tear down people because I compared and found myself lacking.
When it came to work I did, the truth is, my comparison was not just about the importance of the work. The work’s level of importance elevated in my eyes when it came with a title. The title validated my work. Without the title, my work wasn’t esteemed. Without that title I wasn’t seen and appreciated. I needed the approval, so I spent hours gleaning in fields I had no business being in. I made the error that a lot of us make when we seek external validation from people. I missed God’s approval of my teaching ministry. I mistook getting a title from man as being the same as somebody who was actually doing the work that the title represented.
I valued the wrong thing so hard that I resented an assignment that God was used to prepare me for my future.
One of my spiritual moms asked me if I could be an assistant Sunday school teacher for her class of teenagers because she had to work on Sundays, and she did not want to lose her kids. I remember saying yes more out of pressure and loyalty to her than actually wanting to do it.
Then I showed up with a hint of resentment, not excitement. Then I’d remember that season with resentment, for years, until God opened my eyes. I missed that God used was using the teaching experience to hone my teaching ministry. To hone my gift of wisdom, to literally give me a hidden platform to refine how I taught.
I spent an entire season resenting the very thing that God used to shape me because I perceived other roles as being more important than the role that I carried. I was too busy trying to do all the other things to get a title that I thought would be the gateway to more “important” work.
My pink flamingo friend, this is a call to awareness to not just get your ducks in a row around your identity and your perception of the work you are doing but also to learn how to do that work with joy and peace. Heed the caution in Zechariah 4:10 “Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin, to see the plumb line in Zerubbabel’s (your) hand.”
The Assignment You’re Avoiding
When Small Work Feels Like Punishment
There have been many seasons when I did the opposite of Zechariah’s advice. I despised my small beginnings with passion. When I reflect on my life, I see two recurring patterns emerge:
One: The small “unimportant” things God told me to do over the years added up. This blog was once small “unimportant” work that I thought I could do whenever I felt like it. And yet it was a seed that God had given me to sow. It shaped my writing skills. Eventually, stories from it landed into my books and speaking engagements. Eventually, it became The Pink Flamingo Way coupled with weekly Pink Flamingo Steps and my YouTube channel. Do not despise small beginnings. The work that we do adds up.
Two: There are many people around me that I am glad chose to stay in “small unimportant” places and served joyfully in “big impactful ways”. I recently cried as I reflected on how little I honored the role a mentor of mine played in my life. I was a teenager who got a job as a summer worker and that transformed into my job throughout college. My boss took me under her wing. She supported me, made space for me to explore my passions and encouraged me in ways I did not know I needed. In fact, it is only in hindsight that I realize how much her service meant to me. How much her kindness helped me to survive that hard chaotic time of my life. I made it because someone chose to do the work that wouldn’t seem important to many. I survived and thrived because someone stayed in a space that allowed them to lift others up, never quite knowing what that would lead to.
They stayed in their lane and it was the most impactful thing they could have done. And with that said, I do want to touch on what it means to “stay in your lane.” God re-landed that message for me recently in a real way.
How I Almost Missed God’s Preparation
A couple of months ago, I thought that the way to help my husband, Jeremy, was to be somebody who was beside him helping him do the things he was called to, especially the things I was really good at.
I thought that was the path to being a good helpmeet. But in his sight, it wasn’t. And in God’s eyes, it was the worst thing I could do for either one of us. We came to that realization only after we had a disagreement that left us both feeling “unloved” and “unappreciated”.
He asked for my help with something. I couldn’t get to it quickly enough because I was too busy doing self-assigned things I thought he needed help with. I had my way of wanting things done and the timing within which things needed to be done.
In the midst of me being angry and complaining about him not seeing that I was helping and feeling undervalued, Lord said to me, “Stay in your lane. Where he thinks he needs help from you is not the thing I’ve called you to give him help with. What you think you need to help him with is not the thing I have called you to help him with.”
He said to me, “In fact, you need to sit your butt down and ask Me how you should love your husband in the way that he needs to be loved. How do you need to serve your husband now?”
Stay in Your Lane and Watch God Work
When Helping Became Controlling
When I sat down and listened, the thing that came up for me was that my husband needed me to see and interact with him the way God sees him. He needed to be reminded of who he is – of his pink flamingo self.
When I operated in that role, the effect on both of us was way beyond anything I imagined. In God’s sight, that is the most valuable thing I could ever do for him, for me and for us. And I would have missed this very important work if I had not been obedient and shifted into the lane that God assigned me. If I had been disobedient and continued operating in the lane that I felt was “important” work.
Why Control Leads to the Wrong Results
That wasn’t the only thing there. I had to release control of what I thought I knew and follow where God led me. God went on to show me that the reason why I was so bent on being side by side with my husband and trying to help him wasn’t just because I wanted to support him. My core reason was because I was battling anxiety around money. I thought by being there alongside him, we’d hit our financial goals faster. Not only that, I also did not trust him and his leadership. I trusted my own way.
My anxiety pushed me to try to control outcomes by pushing me to take control in ways I was never meant to take control. It is no wonder, I ended up with results that I did not want. Jeremy resented it and “rebelled”. I resented his rebellion and labelled it as “him being unappreciative of my help”. Neither one of us got the thing we truly needed because I was trying to control things. I ended up in a place where I was never meant to be, getting results that I was never meant to get.
Have you ever been there? Stepping into a role and assignment that you were never meant to be in because you need some sense of control? Because of your anxiety? Because you think things will only happen if you are there? That your presence makes things happen faster? Trust me when I tell you, my pink flamingo friend, there is a better and more joyful way. Try God! Find your lane and stay there.
Don’t Despise What God Is Building
Small Beginnings Add Up to Big Impact
Zechariah 4:10 says, “Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin.”
God rejoices in your small beginnings. He celebrates when you show up faithfully in the lane, He’s assigned you. Even when it doesn’t feel important to anyone else, it is important to Him and His plans for you.
Your current assignment isn’t punishment. Sometimes it is preparation. At all times it is the best place for you to be.
Your “small unimportant” work is the seed of something significant? Staying in your “small unimportant” lane is the most impactful thing you can do.
My pink flamingo friend, I spent years despising my small beginnings and missed the blessing right in front of me. Don’t make my mistakes.
Your Pink Flamingo Step: How to Find Joy in Your Current Assignment
Ask God today: “What do You want me to do today?”
No matter how “small” or “unimportant” it may seem, do it! Do that work with joy and peace.
Small acts of obedience prepare you for greater assignments. That’s bible right there! Luke 16:10 puts it this way… “If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones. But if you are dishonest in little things, you won’t be honest with greater responsibilities.
My pink flamingo friend: Your lane matters. Your work matters. You matter.
Birds bird. You you. Will you “you” joyfully in your assigned lane today?
🦩So What’s Next? Choose Your Path To Pink Flamingo Food
Enjoy reading? Read my book, “In Search of the Pink Flamingo”, my journey to discovering how God sees and loves me and choosing to walk that path.
Prefer listening? Listen to this 5-minute episode “Birds bird. Chañel Chañel” on the Pink Flamingo Podcast. This episode hits if you have ever held back who you are because you’re scared no one will like the real you.
Want to support our work? Our mission is to help Caribbean families and communities heal from the psychological wounds of slavery and people-pleasing patterns passed down through generations. Want to be a part of that healing? Forward this email to a Caribbean friend. OR Sow a seed here.
Are you a business owner or corporate leader committed to leading in a way that honors you and others? Read the Client Success Experts blog for weekly strategies to scale smart, enforce boundaries, and build a business that actually feels good to run and grow.
P.S. Your stories encourage me the same way I hope mine encourage you. Send me yours, even if it’s just a two-line email! [email protected].
