Weary in doing good

When doing the right thing doesn’t appear to bring any reward

We all feel like giving up sometimes.

We do the right thing, we make huge sacrifices, we make every effort to keep the peace with someone, we keep forgiving that ‘friend’ who continues to mistreat us, we steadfastly resist a temptation.

But then we start to wonder why.

Doing the right thing ends up hurting us rather than helping us. Our sacrifices don’t appear to be noticed. Our peacemaking isn’t leading to peace. Our friend abuses our forgiveness. That temptation just starts to leave us feeling like we’re missing out.

It’s at times like this that I for one need words like this:

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

It’s from a letter to the people in Galatia, probably written in the second half of the first century.

What a reminder and encouragement.

We all need to be told that the harvest will come. It may seem like nothing is coming from those ‘doing good’ seeds we planted. But if we can just hold our patience, keep watering those seeds, and keep the soil healthy, at the right time, the harvest will appear.

Tempting as it is to give up, we mustn’t. The harvest will make it all worth while. Even if the ‘harvest’ is simply knowing that we stayed the course, we didn’t become weary in doing good, and we kept persevering even when it didn’t seem to reap any reward.

Image: Melissa Askew