Using Your Gifts Without Asking for Payment
On the sacrifice of building something valuable for someone else with no income, no promise of payment, and no guarantee of being received — and on the scriptures that have carried me through it.
Using Your Gifts Without Asking for Payment
This post is more personal than technical. If that is not what you came here for, that is okay. Skip it.
The sacrifice nobody warns you about
There is a particular kind of work that is invisible until it is done, and invisible again after it is done. Building a complete platform for someone else, with no income coming in, no promise of payment at the end, and no guarantee that the work will even be appreciated, is that kind of work.
I am unemployed. I have no other source of income. I am not currently being paid by anyone for anything. The hours I have spent on this platform are hours I could have spent applying for jobs, taking contract work, or rebuilding my own runway. I chose, instead, to spend them building something for someone else, free of charge.
That is not a complaint. It is the situation. And it is worth saying out loud, because the choice to do this kind of work is a real choice, and it costs real things.
Why I keep doing it anyway
The honest answer is faith.
I believe the gifts I have were not given to me to hoard, withhold, or sell to the highest bidder. I believe they were given to me to use in service of other people. That belief does not always feel good. It does not pay rent. It does not erase the legal trouble I am dealing with from driving employees around for the owner of this company. It does not change how some of those same employees have treated me.
But it is what I believe, and so I keep showing up.
The scriptures I keep returning to
A few passages have carried me through this work. I share them not to preach, but because they are the actual reason this platform exists.
On using gifts to serve others
"As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God." — 1 Peter 4:10 (KJV)
The gift is not yours. You are the steward of it. Your job is to put it to use for other people.
On treating everyone with love and respect
"A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." — John 13:34–35 (KJV)
"Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets." — Matthew 7:12 (KJV)
These are not aspirational. They are the standard. And they apply even when — especially when — the people you are loving are not loving you back.
On giving freely, without demanding payment
"Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give." — Matthew 10:8 (KJV)
"Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." — Hebrews 13:5 (KJV)
If a thing was given to me freely, I do not get to put a price tag on it when I pass it along. That includes skill. That includes time. That includes showing up.
On dusting off your feet when you are not received
"And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet." — Matthew 10:14 (KJV)
"And whosoever shall not receive you, when ye go out of that city, shake off the very dust from your feet for a testimony against them." — Luke 9:5 (KJV)
This is the verse I have thought about most. Not as a threat. As a permission.
If I have shown up, given freely, served honestly, and been treated as if I were less than human in return — Scripture does not tell me to stay forever. It tells me to keep my hands clean of it, walk on, and let the record stand.
What that looks like in practice
It does not look like resentment. It does not look like a tantrum. It does not look like deleting the code, taking down the site, or going public with grievances I have kept private.
It looks like this: I do the work. I do it well. I do it with a smile when I can manage it and with quiet when I can't. I keep my conduct clean — no lies, no theft, no slander, no retaliation — so that whatever is said about me later cannot be true. And when the time comes that I am no longer received, I dust off my feet, and I walk.
That time may not be today. It may not be tomorrow. But the verse is in the book for a reason, and I trust that I will recognize the moment when it comes.
To anyone reading this who is doing the same kind of work
If you are using your gifts to serve someone who is not paying you, who may never pay you, who may not even thank you — and you are wondering whether it is worth it:
It is. Not because the people receiving it deserve it. Because the One who gave you the gift in the first place is watching how you steward it. And no act of faithful service, however invisible, is wasted.
"And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not." — Galatians 6:9 (KJV)
That is what I am holding onto. That is enough.