When I Am Weary of Doing Good

Devotional

There's a particular tiredness that comes from being faithful.

Not the tired of doing wrong. The tired of doing right and having it change nothing. You keep showing up for the marriage that isn't getting easier. You keep serving in the ministry nobody thanks you for. You keep forgiving the person who keeps needing it. You keep praying for the one who keeps not coming. And at some point you think, I've been doing good for a long time and I'm not sure it's working.

Paul knows that tiredness exists, because he names it. "Let us not grow weary of doing good." He wouldn't say that if good people didn't get weary. And then the reason. "For in due season we will reap, if we do not give up." Due season. Not this season. There's a gap between the sowing and the reaping, and the gap is where everybody quits. Paul's saying the harvest is real and it's scheduled. You're just not at that date yet.

Isaiah goes at the root of the problem. "Have you not known? Have you not heard?" That's not a gentle question. That's a prophet grabbing you by the shoulders. "The LORD is the everlasting God... He does not faint or grow weary." You do. He doesn't. And that difference is the whole point. You were never supposed to run on your own reserves. "He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength."

Notice who gets the strength. The faint. The ones with no might. Not the ones managing fine. The exhausted ones. If you're tired enough to be reading this, you're the target audience.

Then the famous part. "They who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint." Everybody loves the eagles. But look at the order. Fly. Run. Walk. It goes down, not up. And I think that's on purpose. Because the hardest faithfulness isn't the soaring kind. It's the walking kind. One foot. Then the other. For years. Isaiah says God gives strength for that too. Especially for that.

But here's where the weariness actually gets answered. Hebrews 12:3. "Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted."

Consider him.

Jesus did good his whole life and it got him killed. He healed people who didn't come back to say thank you. He taught crowds who left when the teaching got hard. He washed the feet of a man who was about to betray him. He prayed for the people driving the nails. If anyone ever had reason to be weary of doing good, it was him. And he didn't give up. He endured all the way to "it is finished."

And that's why your good isn't wasted. Because it's not your good anymore. It's his, working through you, and his harvest doesn't fail. The marriage you keep showing up for, the kid you keep praying for, the ministry nobody notices: God sees all of it, and he's counting.

So "do not grow weary in doing good." Not because you've got more in the tank. Because he does, and he gives it to the ones who've run out.

Wait on him today. Then walk. That's enough.