Not Giving Up, Not Giving In

“So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.”

― GALATIANS 6:9 (NLT)

Sometimes our efforts are not rewarded,

Outcomes prove this as shown,

Those efforts that are worthy to be rewarded,

That’s where God’s will is known.

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Not every effort we make gets the appropriate human recognition. We may well be in the lap of God’s will even when we’re ignored, unappreciated, even disliked. But the ‘effort worthy of reward’ is pleasing to God and there is an abundance to look forward to. Let’s not give up (Galatians 6:9). God wills us to keep up our effort; to keep trying, where He has placed us.

Life is a very rough place much of the time, and we are never too far from feeling its brunt hard up against us and in our faces.

Much of the torment that we may experience relates to relationships; the loss of some and the angst in others.

Not giving up and not giving in is about receiving an apportionment of grace, in and about the living of our lives. We need to retain soft hearts and we do this very thing by insisting that we ourselves turn back to God by not giving up and not giving in. It is up to us. Nobody can do this for us. We are the ones who must choose to see and see correctly.

Resisting Pride

One of the hardest of feats any human being can achieve is to resist their pride and turn from it. We all want the very best for ourselves, and where there is a perception we are missing out we want to rally against that. But this does us no good. It always backfires. So why do we insist on having things our own way when we know it won’t work? We make fools of ourselves in defending the indefensible.

We are advised to take up our volition to stand and to withstand: the climbing ego, the hurt enraged of disgust, every sense of embarrassment and shame for not being able to control things as we’d like to.

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God’s will is known by the thoughts we have and the actions we take for the Kingdom. But not all of what is God’s will is rewarded. Sometimes we suffer for having done things for the Kingdom. But, as the Old Book says, “So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.”

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.