We planted a garden this week.
Vegetables, fruit, flowers, pumpkins, it’s the biggest we have ever attempted. And I am already looking forward to the harvest!
But I have to admit, while I was filling those four giant raised beds with rotten logs, leaves, compost, and topsoil, there were many times when I was ready to give up.
“Is this really going to be worth all of this effort?”
That’s the question we ask in the middle of every hard project, isn’t it?
The difference between quitting and pushing through comes down to this little thing called motivation. Motivation is that mental calculus we do to try to determine if the payoff will justify the pain. And a big part of that equation is how we rate the likelihood of our endeavor’s success.
About halfway through the project, my motivation was waning. But as I was digging for rotten logs in the thorny undergrowth of our woods, questioning every life decision that had led me to this point, I was suddenly reminded of Galatians 6:9.
Let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.
Now that’s a motivating verse, isn’t it?
But this is no mere hopeful projection, like “rah, rah, rah, we can do it, boys!” This is motivation rooted in the certainty of the promises secured by Jesus Christ. This is faith.
Because notice what Paul doesn’t say. He doesn’t say we might reap. He says “in due season we will reap.”
Good works, which is what Paul is talking about here, are anything we do in faith (see Romans 14:23 and Hebrews 11:4–6). And like any endeavor, good works are often hard—they require sacrifice. But unlike my garden project, spiritually, good works have guaranteed results.1
This is the eternal hope God wants us to ground our motivation in.
Because here’s the thing: my garden may bear fruit or it may not. I can water, weed, and fertilize perfectly, but ultimately there is always a chance that weather, pests, or disease may render all of my back-breaking labor worthless.
But for those who labor in the name of Jesus Christ, the mission cannot fail. The outcome is not in question. And that confidence should produce in us an ironclad, fatigue-resistant motivation to press on and not grow weary in doing good.
I don’t know what difficulties you may be facing this week, but I do know that the harvest is coming. So let me encourage you to keep the faith. Work done for Christ will bear its fruit in due time.
Don’t give up.
- I do believe gardening can be a good work in the broad sense—anything done by faith. You can garden to the glory of God. My garden may fail, but spiritually, I could still have done that work as unto the Lord. But that’s not the point I wanted to make in this piece. I’m also just now realizing that putting a footnote next to the words “guaranteed results” makes it look like the kind of promise you find on the label of an anti-aging serum. It’s not. God’s guarantees are actual guarantees. ↩︎
