Fruitful Labor

In early June, I sat at the kitchen table across from fourteen other women as we studied Jeremiah. A Bible study that sprouted from the deep pang of loneliness I experienced moving back home after college had grown from two women to the fourteen that traveled dark summer roads each Tuesday night to open Bibles in the presence of other believers.

During prayer, I shared the unshakable discouragement I had been experiencing that came from feeling like my efforts to evangelize, to love others, and especially to support raise weren't producing any fruit. 

October 2019
Our Bible study of five

July 2020
Our Bible study of fourteen

The next morning, I received a text from a girl I had only met a couple times and how had come to Bible study for the first time the night before. Among her unexpected kindness and encouraging words, she said this: "This song made me think of the hard work you're doing and the way it seems like you're feeling! Your labor is not in vain. Thank you for inviting me-I had so much fun and can't wait till next week." At the bottom of the text was a link to the song "You Labor is Not in Vain" by The Porter's Gate.

"Your Labor Is Not In Vain" -The Porter's Gate  (Click to listen)

The song goes like this: "Your labor is not in vain/ though the ground underneath is cursed and stained/ your planting and reaping are never the same/ your labor is not in vain/ your labor is not unknown/ though the rocks they cry out and the sea it may groan/ the place of your toil may not seem like a home/ but your labor is not unknown/ I am with you/ I am with you/ I am with you/ for I have called you, called you by name/ your labor is not in vain

In a world that measures success through tangible means, to feel like work means something when there is nothing to grasp is difficult. Hard work is pointless unless you can point to something that surfaced from the hours of labor.

We work long days and nights for the blessed sight of a paycheck. We toil and sweat through hours of house projects so that we can showcase a beautiful home at the end. We run miles and spend countless time in the gym to see physical results in our bodies and changes in our endurance.

Who would work to receive nothing in the end?

Romans 8:18-21 says: "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God." 

As Christians, we know the toil and labor we endure in this life is for a purpose. We know it is for our becoming more like Christ, and we know that eventually, Christ will return to take us home where we will finally be freed from sin and we will be thankful for this life we lived in a broken and despairing world when we are finally face-to-face with our Creator himself. 

But sometimes that day, that glorious moment of realizing it was all worth it, seems far and removed from the daily life we live. Sometimes it feels too far away to really matter right now. 

We want to know that our efforts mean something and are doing something right at this moment. Sometimes we do get to see that. Sometimes we don't. Most of the time I focus on when I can't see the fruit.  

I suppose it seems strange for me to be complaining about fruit when a Bible study I started a year ago has increased by 600% and I suppose it seems strange for me to be complaining about fruit when I started this summer just shy of 30% monthly support and 41% of one-time support and am now 64% of monthly support and 93% of one-time support.

But can I be real that there were times in late spring and early summer when I wanted to give up? I was terrified of offending people, of being told no, of being ignored in my efforts to reach out to people and build connections and gain partners in ministry.

I felt like I couldn't get people excited about what I was doing. I remember explaining this very thing to a friend over the phone. After a pause, he asked me: "Are you excited about what you are doing?"

His question stopped me. The answer was no. I wasn't excited about what I was doing and hadn't been for a while. I felt discouraged. Dejected. Like none of my efforts made any difference at all.

So how do we get this dissonance when we feel something contrary to what we know to be true? How do we fight against our mind with the truth? That must be one of the biggest questions we are faced with as believers. I have struggled with this question my entire Christian life. 

Jeremiah 17:9 says: "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?"

1 John 3:18-20 says: "Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything."

In classic SparkNotes style, our hearts are liars constantly trying to trick us into despair by believing something that isn't true BUT God is greater than our hearts. And how do we know this? How can we trust this? Because he knows everything even the depths of our depraved hearts. 

And so, my heart, when not constantly reminded of the truth of God's word that our labor is not in vain, when not constantly reminded of the truth of God's word that he is sovereign over every low season of life and every curveball circumstance life throws at us, is like a child without parental supervision wasting no time to make a beeline for a wall socket or a hot iron. 

My heart is so incredibly wicked it wants to destroy me. The lies it believes, the sins it desires, the skewed stories it tells itself are all designed to rob me of joy, to make me trade what is good and worth of praise for what is not. The end result is always discouragement and despair. 

And so, the remedy is perseverance even when we don't feel like it. 

Romans 5:2-5 says: "And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so but we also rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." 

The longer we persevere, the stronger our faith becomes. The stronger our faith becomes the longer we can persevere. We develop a faith that knows God is worthy of our trust and we don't need to despair no matter what the situation or season. We develop the radical faith we only ever read about. This is our hope. This is what we strive for. 

And now, at the end of ten months, I  am finally starting to see the fruit of my labor. However, I wouldn't trade those ten months of hard labor, of sanctifying endurance, or refining waiting for anything because of the faith it produced in me--a faith I couldn't have gotten any other way. 

And so now, I set my eyes on what my hope is in--Christ. Christ has called me to this ministry of support raising and he has blessed it with his careful patient hand so far. And I have faith that the final 36% of monthly support and 7% of one-time support will come in his perfect timing. 

Please join me in prayer as I seek five more monthly partners this month. Pray for the meetings that haven't yet happened. Pray that the Lord would prepare the hearts of those who he desires as partners in this ministry. Pray that I would be able to share this vision of ministry well. 

Love, 

S