If We Faint Not

Galatians 6:9 – “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”

Preparing the ground and sowing the seed is often difficult and sometimes even discouraging. To bury the seed in the ground in the faith that fruit will result takes confidence, patience and hard work. The harvest is a period of gladness, for then faith has become SIGHT. We can SEE the fruit – but when we sow the seed, we must do it by faith.

One spring when a farmer was planting potatoes, his little grandson who was watching intently finally asked, “Why do you bury those potatoes? Aren’t they good anymore?” He associated burying with dead things. The farmer tried to explain that those potatoes had life in them, and that this life could only result in a harvest – if they were first put into the ground and allowed to “die.” In the fall the farmer was able to bring him to the same garden patch and dig up five or six large potatoes as the result of the planting. It takes faith to bury a perfectly good seed in the earth. Yet, though the harvest may be slow in coming, “in due season we shall reap, if we faint not” (Gal. 6:9).

The one who sows may not always be a reaper. Some must sow, and some must reap, but the sower will be partially credited with the harvest even though someone else gathers the crop. Some toil and work for God in obscure places, going almost unrecognized by men, while others bask in the sunlight of success as they see many souls being brought to Christ. There could never be a happy harvest, however, without many lonesome sowers. Take heart, unpraised laborer in your forgotten corner, remember Gal. 6:9.

Cast thy bread upon the waters, though thou hast a scant supply,
Angel eyes watch over it; thou shall find it by and by.
He who in His righteous balance doth each human action weigh,
Will your sacrifice remember, will your loving deeds repay!