Daily Prayer: When Doing Right Costs You Something
Daily Prayer: When Doing Right Costs You Something
"But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. "Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened.""
— 1 Peter 3:14
I was refilling my coffee mug this morning — the third time, which I'm choosing not to examine too closely — when I noticed I was running through a conversation in my head that already happened two days ago.
Not replaying it because I regretted anything I said. I'd actually said the right thing. I'd been honest when it would have been much easier to nod and move on.
But the other person hadn't loved it. And apparently, I was still quietly waiting for some kind of score to be posted somewhere. Some confirmation that it was worth it.
The coffee got cold again. I reheated it. I stood at the counter a little longer than necessary.
The Quiet Cost of Doing the Right Thing
Nobody tells you that doing the right thing sometimes feels like paying a bill you didn't expect. Not dramatic. Not persecution-level. Just a small, low-grade discomfort that lingers.
You say the honest thing at work. You hold a boundary with someone you love. You speak up in a room where everyone else is staying carefully silent. And then you live with the mild awkwardness of it, like a pebble in your shoe.
It's not suffering in the grand sense. But Peter wasn't only writing to people being thrown to lions. I think he was also writing to regular people, doing ordinary things, in ordinary moments — who still felt the small sting of choosing right when wrong would have been so much more comfortable.
Blessed, Even When It's Awkward
That word — blessed — tends to get used for things that feel good. Sunsets. Newborns. A parking spot right up front.
But here Peter tosses it into a sentence about suffering. About doing right and still catching some kind of grief for it. Which is either deeply encouraging or slightly unsettling, depending on the day.
I think it's both, honestly.
What I keep coming back to is the second part: do not fear what they fear. There's something almost freeing buried in there. The world runs on a particular kind of fear — fear of being disliked, of being left out, of losing standing with the people who seem to matter. And most of us, if we're being straight with ourselves, let that fear do a lot of our decision-making.
Peter says: you don't have to live inside that fear. You have access to a different operating system entirely.
The Freedom in Not Being Frightened
My daughter — who is very much an adult now, which I'm still adjusting to — made a brave call recently. A professional one. It cost her something socially, in that quiet way things do. And I watched her sit with it, steady and a little tired, but not shaken.
I thought: that's what this looks like. Not fearless in the superhero sense. Just not ruled by the fear everyone else is running from.
I want more of that for myself. Not because it's a goal I'm chasing, but because I notice how much lighter I feel when I'm not managing everyone's reaction to me. When I do the right thing and then just — let it be. Let God hold what happens next.
That's harder than it sounds. But it's also less exhausting than the alternative, which is carrying the whole thing myself indefinitely.
A Small Shift in What I'm Waiting For
I finished my coffee — cold again, I gave up — and I thought about what I was actually looking for when I kept replaying that conversation.
I think I wanted the other person's approval to confirm that I'd done right. Which is sweet, in a misguided sort of way. But it's also putting something in someone else's hands that was never really theirs to give.
The blessing isn't their approval. The blessing is that I'm not walking in fear of it.
That's the thing I want to remember the next time I'm standing at the counter, replaying a conversation, waiting for a score that isn't coming.
You did the right thing. That's enough. You can set it down now.
A Prayer for Today
God, I'll be honest — I still want people to be okay with me when I do the right thing. I know that's not always how it goes, but I'm not totally over it yet.
Help me care more about what You think than what the room thinks. Not in a way that makes me careless with people — I actually want to be kind — but in a way that means I'm not letting other people's reactions run the show.
When it costs me something to do right, remind me that You see it. That's the part I forget. I act like if no one noticed, it didn't count. But You notice. That matters more than I usually let it.
Help me set down the conversations I keep replaying. Help me trust You with what comes next after I've done the right thing. And honestly — help me not be so scared of being disliked. I think You have something better for me than spending my energy on that.
Thank You for being the kind of God who calls ordinary moments blessed. I needed that today.
Amen.
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