FAITHFUL SERVANT

Matthew 25:21a (NIV)

His master replied, “Well done good and faithful servant!”

"Lazy."

That was often my mom’s response whenever I asked how she was feeling. It became her default answer ever since last year, when lung cancer began taking a heavier toll on her body. Over the past year, she has been unable to do much for herself, yet an overwhelming desire to clean drives her whenever she finds the strength. My dad and I rarely feel comfortable leaving her alone for long, knowing the extreme lengths she will go to just to tidy up.

I know I sound like a broken record, as I frequently write about my struggle with tying my worth to my ability to perform. But there it is—that same mindset, mirrored even in my own mother.

Lately, my own physical exhaustion has taken a severe turn for the worse. The other day, simply preparing my mom’s morning medications and setting up for my brother-in-law to make her breakfast felt like a daunting feat. As I dragged myself back upstairs to my room, I collapsed into my recliner, breathing a little heavier than usual.

My mom means well. Her deep-seated Japanese politeness automatically comes out when she watches me struggle and tells me I am working too hard. In my head, I respond, "Yes, Mom, these simple tasks that used to be effortless are currently exhausting, but they still must be done." Physical exhaustion is no joke.

For a long time, her comments about me working too hard on basic tasks deeply irritated me. I mistakenly took her words as a lack of faith in my capabilities, rather than an expression of care. But coming from a culture—and a household—that measures worth by output, those words simply fed an already deep sense of inadequacy.

Growing up in modern Western culture, I had bought into the lie that my value was strictly tied to my physical and mental capacity. Though I never really thought about it previously, I came to realize that for a long time, I automatically measured my value by how much I could get done, how fast I could move, and how efficiently I could handle things.

Head knowledge and heart reality, though, were two very different things. In my mind, I knew that God's love and salvation could not be earned. But because my performance-oriented mindset was so deeply ingrained, my heart fought that truth every single moment. I found myself in this overwhelming internal loop: I would try to perform to feel worthy, catch myself doing it, and then beat myself up because I knew I wasn't supposed to think that way in the first place. So basically, feeling guilty about my own inability to fully rest in grace just added another layer of sin to my big pile of failures.

Over the many years, that internal tension has been constantly spreading into how I viewed scripture. I started projecting my own task-oriented standards onto God, assuming He evaluated me the same way that I and the world did. Verses that were meant to bring comfort ended up feeling like impossible expectations.

Whenever I read passages like "Well done, good and faithful servant" , I didn't feel peace—I felt a wave of deep discouragement. I only recently realized why: in my mind, I was replacing the word "faithful" with "successful." I thought God was keeping score on my obedience to His ways, and I felt constantly caught between the grace I knew in my head and the earning mindset playing out in my heart, telling me that I was constantly falling short.

Fortunately, God is deeply patient. He has been gently dismantling this false image of Himself and challenging the broken metrics I used to define my value. Surprisingly, He didn't do this through a sudden burst of inspiration or a grand achievement—He did it through long, humbling seasons of exhaustion.

Truthfully, this isn't a battle I have fully won; it is an ongoing, daily reality. Physical fatigue still weighs heavy on me, and those ingrained habits of tying my worth to my output or viewing God through a lens of performance still try to creep back in. But even in the middle of the struggle, I know He is right here with me. When my physical energy hits a wall and I simply can't do anymore, He uses the stillness to gently remind me of His character. In that space of weakness, He meets me not with disappointment, but with steady grace.

I am learning that my faith isn't a static accomplishment, but an ever-growing trust in His incredible love. Biblical faith isn't a performance test so it has never been about how much I can produce or how quickly I move. It’s simply holding on to Him, staying connected, and resting in His deep love for me—especially on the days when I literally have nothing left to give.

So now that I am leaning more into God’s love and grace, I can better embrace Him saying to me, “Well done good and faithful servant.” To God be the glory. Amen.