Life is full of long, hard labor. When it is tempting for us to take shortcuts or give up altogether, we can trust that God, in time, will bear fruit in our lives. The fruit may come in this life, it may come in even greater degree in eternity, or it may look like growth in deeper faith and greater joy in our hearts. So stay the course, Long-Laborer; your trustworthy God will see that your labor for Him is not in vain.
Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.
The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
for the Lord knows the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever,…
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,…
In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials…