Be Encouraged & Keep Going In The Lord’s Strength!

Word-Of-The-Day: ‘Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.’ (Galatians 6:9)

Someone asked me if, after many years (16 years to be exact) of teaching our Monday night Life Group, if I was getting tired of doing it.  I got a similar inquiry about the Word-of-the-Day blog; though it had started in June 2023, the daily (well, Monday through Friday, minus holidays) blog posts continue to be a ‘labor of love’.  I do have some previous writings I had done that I use for a base in Scripture, but I do have to update them to keep them relevant.  The Scriptural references and their meaning are as fresh as the first time they were written down in the original Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek, but the current references that I had made – perhaps during COVID, for example – don’t necessarily resonate today.

The answer for both teaching the Life Group and writing the WOTD blog, is of course, ‘at times, yes.’  Being human, we often find ourselves in positions where we look out the window and find we have desires that are not always Biblically focused.  These are not necessarily evil or sinful desires; a desire to go to the gun range for me, someone else may want to shoot a round of golf.  The desire to travel to get away and relax is another.  Often it is not desires but the need to address ‘needs’, to make time to do hurricane preparations or to do typical home maintenance.  The need to do these things sometimes try to compete with the need to prepare a lesson or write a blog post.

Those times are stressors, and they can be tiring if encountered too often.  A strong desire or competing need can cause stress when it comes again the constraints of time and effort.  To do one takes time and effort away from the other.  Fortunately, my career as a government contractor at a major US combatant command at the height of warfare had many of these crossroads of stressors on a daily basis, so I can usually handle these moments today with relative ease.  However, doing repetitive actions, over and over, can be tiresome.  The ‘same-old, same-old’ routines can become boring, and boredom usually breeds the desires to do something else.

Does this mean I’ll stop teaching the Life Group or writing the blog soon?  The answer is its not in the plans now.  My goal is to continue teaching as I haven’t covered the entire Bible and I have a goal to do so.  When I accomplish that (sometime next year), I plan to start from the beginning.  If may be that the Lord will direct me on a different path, or do so something different, but the plan today is to keep going.  The blog will continue for now as well, though it takes more energy as it is a daily labor. 

At some point, when I believe the ‘library of posts’ created appears to cover almost every topic (right now it appears there are 65 pages of posts, with 12 posts per page, so per my math that’s about 780 posts – your mileage, er, math may vary), I may stop and consider to do something a bit different, in line with the Lord’s direction where He wants me to go.  So, I continue to find Joy – and enjoyment – overall in weekly lessons and writing daily posts.  I’m not planning on stopping either anytime soon; that day may one day come, but it’s not in the foreseeable future.

Now if I follow my desires and feelings, I could have let tiredness and weakness overcome my need to do these things.  But each blog, and each lesson, encourages me that they are achieving a need that the Lord needs fulfilled through them. Where does our strength and energy come from, when we become weary?  Not just in preparing lessons or posts, but driving home or to work – in all things that may just not always be enjoyable.  That strength, of course, comes from the Lord, and in our Righteous desire to please the Lord by performing Righteous duties. 

Paul in (Galatians 6:9-10) encourages us to continue to do good, even if we become tired or feel like we are in a rut, because there is always that one opportunity that we could perhaps introduce someone to Christ.  We can try hard but not experience any sense of success, but we strive for that one moment of providing inspiration or better, a lead pointing someone to Salvation. 

I often get encouragement through your uplifting words after a lesson, or comments and e-mails I get, sometimes even from people as far away as Arizona, who gain encouragement and inspiration, from the Word-of-the-Day posts.  The tiredness and weariness fade away and I’m renewed to continue on, in a refreshment I get from the Spirit to keep going, keep digging, and keep moving forward in Faith.

It is always a grind, an effort, to do a lesson, to take the time to hold the class, etc.  But it is all well worth it when we see someone come in and join us to hear the Good News.  It’s well worth it for you to be there to help welcome them, as well.  Keep up the Good Fight, keep moving forward, and never, ever give up when the cause of Christ is on the line.  Keep driving like you’re wanting to go home to hear those words, ‘Well done, Faithful servant!’, because that’s why you’re doing it!