February 12, 2019 – Acts 16:25

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.
—Acts 16:25

All of us exercise unconscious ministries.13 When we never dream we are affecting anybody, we are touching others all the time. We sing at midnight because God is with us and prisoners in other cells are cheered.
We never know what we are doing when we do it. Like Faithful in the Valley of the Shadow, we lift our voices because our hearts are strong. And some poor Christian, stumbling on behind us also on the way to the Celestial City, thanks God and takes courage at the music. Be quite sure that the very humblest life is full of unconscious ministries. There is not a note of song we ever raise but the ear of some other prisoner will catch it. Words that we utter and then forget—a smile in passing, the clasp of hands in comradeship—have their work to do and will meet us in the dawn.
This unconscious helpfulness is one of the chief ministries of happiness. Happiness is sometimes selfishness, but happiness is sometimes service. The one who resolves at all costs to be happy is generally a very miserable person. In this world the things we set our hearts on are often the things we never get. When anyone is genuinely happy, then happiness is unconscious benediction.
The ones who can sing at midnight because God is with them are doing something for others all the time. To be happy when the shadows deepen and the cross is heavy is one of the finest of life’s unconscious ministries.
I believe that much of our Christian service must always be of that unconscious character. I trust that when this life is over, you and I will each have the well done. That is the only thing worth living for, the only welcome that I want. But I have sometimes thought that the great surprise of the dawn will be the kind of thing for which it is the reward. Certain ministries of which I knew nothing as I went out and in among you will waken the trumpets on the other side.
People who do their best always do more, though they are haunted by the sense of failure. Be good and true, be patient, be resolute. Leave your usefulness for God to estimate. He will see to that you do not live in vain.
—George H. Morrison