Another Dose of Servanthood

Okay, so I have had this thought rolling around in my mind for the last week or so:

"If you do things so no one will notice, how selfish is it to be disappointed when no one does?"

In other words, if you do acts of service or whatever in your ministry as a believer or in your vocation, and no one knows about them, should you be upset that no one knows they have been done? I like a little praise just like anybody else, but most of the time I want to do my job without a lot of hoopla. I have had enough accolades in my life that I do not need them to define me like I did when I was a child. I mean, I had a wall of trophies and ribbons and plaques. I have since thrown them all away because they were meaningless to me after high school.

But back to the present. I had this grand resentful moment last Thursday while reading a story from the old life about some wonderful thing that someone had done. Only thing was that I had done these things ten years ago, just no one really "significant" knew about them. I was a little offended because I know there were a few who knew what I had done and appreciated it, but soon I thought: "Why do you seek the praise of a world you no longer inhabit?" And: "What does it matter who knows what you do, if it is truly service to God?" And more personally: "Why did it bother me that someone else was receiving praise for something I too had done? Since I sought absolutely nothing in the way of commendation at the time, why did it bother me now that I never got it?" Was it just the fact that someone else eventually did? I guess "martyrs" can be a little petty at times.

So I posit this question: "How much tooting of one's own horn is necessary?" Or is this something completely foreign to the Christ-centered life? And why is it that we feel that we have to make sure people know what we are doing? Is it because we are a society based on action, and if we do all our service in secret we appear to be inactive and ineffective? I guess it goes back to my favorite quote: "You know you are a servant when you are treated like one and it does not bother you."