The Daily Struggle

“And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up,” (Galatians 6:9).

Do you ever feel like giving up? Maybe it’s the family; you can’t get on with them and it seems like whatever you do you are in the wrong. You want to just give up trying to treat them well and love them. Maybe it’s at work; your boss is overbearing and keeps penalizing you for being a Christian, you want to just give up and leave your Christian faith at the door when you go into work. Maybe it’s in your Christian walk; you battle away at sin but somehow it always seems to come back and bite you. You are fighting the same old sins over and over again, you want to just give up and stop fighting.

If you ever feel like this, God has a word to speak to you and to me. “Don’t grow weary.” Don’t get tired of doing good.

But then, you may say, “why?” Why shouldn’t I grow weary and give up? The answer comes back: “In due season we will reap.” To put that in modern terms, “If we keep going we will one day see the fruit of our perseverance and our hard work.” It may well not be the fruit that we expect or want. It may be that we gain character and become more like Jesus, but we get sacked from our job. “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance,” (James 1:2-3).

Being a Christian is not easy. But if we are living for Jesus we can be sure of his help! He is the man who kept battling. He went through the garden of Gethsemane where he sweat drops of blood as he prayed desperately that he would be able to avoid the pain of God’s punishment on sin. But he didn’t give up. He suffered the loss of all his closest friends as they ran away from him even though he was suffering their punishment, but he didn’t give up. He was condemned as a criminal even though he had done nothing wrong, but he didn’t give up. He was hung on a Roman cross and suffered the immense pain of crucifixion, but he didn’t give up. More than all of this, he suffered the curse of God against the sin of all the people throughout history whom he saved, a curse that we cannot even imagine. But Jesus did not give up. “Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary of fainthearted,” (Hebrews 12:3).

Keep battling on this week. You are in good company and one day we will see the fruit!

By Thomas van den Broek