Cheer up, despondent mission worker, disconsolate Sunday school teacher, discouraged gospel preacher, weary hospital worker, sorely tried tract distributor! Do you not know that however black things look, how little results you see, how many disappointments you meet in seeking to serve your Lord, everything done with a single eye, under the constraint of His love, will receive His “Well done” in a coming day?
A farmer plows, harrows, and sows, often in adverse weather conditions, and without immediate results, but he waits in patience. In due season you shall reap, if you faint not.
We must also remember that the work of some is to sow, that of others to reap, but both shall rejoice together when the havest is garnered. If we cannot all be successful servants, we can all be faithful ones.
To all outward appearance there never was a more unsuccessful servant than our blessed Lord. After arduous days, and weary nights, spent in going about doing good, laboring, toiling, incessantly, apparently He had spent His strength for naught. But was that so? The decision was with His God; and in the day of glory soon to dawn, innumerable hosts, blessed in heaven and on earth, will witness that His labor was not in vain.
Let us labor on, cheered and encouraged “that our labor is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Cor. 15:5858Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. (1 Corinthians 15:58)). His eye discerns all done to please Him. In every good work we are to do His will. If we cannot do what we would, may it be true that we have done what we could. Whatsoever we do is to be done heartily as unto the Lord, and not unto men, “knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance; for ye serve the Lord Christ” (Col. 3:2424Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ. (Colossians 3:24)).