I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.
John 4:38
We want validation by recognition.
Successful ministry of serving people, fulfilling God‘s calling, bringing fruit, etc. comes down to visible results. We want to preach and have people come to the front and accept Jesus, we want to post a video sharing a revelation and have views to show that it was needed for people, we want to meet someone one on one and then see improvement in their thinking or behavior.
It probably was the same way always because people are people and we need a visible result to validate what we are doing, to prove to us that we are investing ourselves and our time into something that’s worth it.
I’ve been observing successful preachers, people with large ministries, or even people with smaller ministries but with clearly seen results and approval of others. We understand that they make an impact because their videos are watched, or because their services are attended, or because their books are read, or because when they get people together for any kind of conference or seminar, thousands show up, there are comments on their posts, and they got many likes. And it all makes sense.
But what about the people that don’t see this proof that what they are doing actually matters. They don’t get the same level of engagement and approval.
What about the people that keep preaching to a small group for many years, or have a blog that gets only a few readers, or someone who wrote a book and only sold some dozen copies. Or you’re just cooking and cleaning and taking kids to school and soccer practice. Or you just work and try to be a good Christian employee. Or you are an usher at church. Or preach on Wednesday services twice a year. I assume you get the picture.
And not all are striving for recognition, but most people need visible approval to be sure that what they are doing is necessary.
Cross-roads.
I remember thinking about ten years ago that I’m sort of on a cross-roads about what to dedicate my next few years to. I could spend a few years writing a book, or creating and running a blog, or open an online school and record teachers of multiple subjects, maybe start teaching at Bible Schools (and I’ve had some offers), etc. But what was stopping me is that I didn’t know which one of those things would be the most successful, or what’s worse, is what if nobody would read the book or the blog, or wouldn’t sign up for the school? What then? I would have wasted all that time!
Remembering now, I just decided to seek God and His direction and be lead by the Holy Spirit and just do whatever I believe God would have me do at any point in time and any situation, no matter how big or small it the task was. And try obey immediately.
I now see that that was the best decision, to simply do what God has for me right here and right now and trust Him that that is the best use of my time and abilities. No matter the visible result.
Why so? Why is that the best decision even if what I did hadn’t turned into a visibly large ministry?
Well a few days go I was asking God the same question, and here is the answer I got.
One sows and another reaps.
Once Jesus, discipling his future apostles, who later will change the world, who will become the pillars of the Church, who will have a very visible and sizable ministries, who will write a portion of the Bible, to them Jesus says:
… the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.” John 4:36-38
Jesus basically says to the disciples that its not only due to their efforts, or them being special, or their previous education, or whatever else that they could bring to the table, its not because of those things that they will become apostles and that they get to bring people to Christ by the thousands, but somebody else did a great potion of the work and the disciples are just there to reap the harvest.
The rabbi’s of the local synagogues, the exemplary neighbor, the patient wife, the loving and caring boss, the humble friend, the circumstance, the work of the Holy Spirit in people’s heart – all these did their part without much recognition, and now Peter stands up and preaches a short sermon and 3,000 people get saved (Acts 2:41-47). And we say Peter is a great preacher. We invite him to our churches, we want to meet with him for mentorship sessions, we want to read his books, we want to learn the reason of his success.
But Jesus recognizes all who did their invisible part as well as the visible, and warns us that we ought not deem one more important than the other. One sows, the other reaps, all together complete one work!
Hammer, chisel, rock.
If you were to use a chisel and a hammer to split a big rock into two pieces, and you kept hitting the rock 150 times and on the 151st hit the rock would split, you wouldn’t say that the 151st hit is the important one, that you would love to learn how to hit just like that the 151st hit, or would want to learn what is the secret formula of the 151st hit. And you would never say that the rest of the hits don’t matter! If it wasn’t for the 150 hits of the hammer and on the chisel before the last one, the 151st would simply be the first hit and there would be ZERO visible result for 149 hits after it.
So all the 150 hits prior were just as important and the 151st, and the 151st was simply the one that the splitting of the rock happend on.
A second rock could take 243 hits to split, and third may take 84. So all of a sudden if we praise the 151st hit only, then it would bring no visible result on rock two, and we would never even get to the 151st hit on rock three. So praising 151st in all situations is absurd! And praising the same person, or approach, or whatever else across situation is just as absurd!
Maybe I’m taking the example to extremes here, but when you split rocks, every single hit counts. When we serve in the Kingdom of God, every single task counts!
There is not one person in the world, who can split any rock with a hammer and a chisel with one blow.
The one person who split all rocks with one blow.
Jesus is the only one that did something with one action, something that affected EVERY SINGLE PERSON in all ages, which is save ALL of humanity by dying on the cross, so all who believe can be saved from their sins (Matthew 1:21, John 3:16) and for that He deserves the glory and praise, and only He has the right to guide everything, but even He, speaking to his disciples, says that we should ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers (Matthew 9:38), pointing out that He works together with the Father and doesn’t claim to be self-sufficient, the only one who deserves all the praise and attention, and that He should be the most recognized among all the people. NO, Jesus says I am the way to the Father (John 14:6), pointing to the Father and skipping himself altogether though Jesus did the action to save all the humanity.
God has the big picture. And God decides who gets to throw the last blow with the hammer and who gets the visible result or visible fruit among the people. The visibility is not up to us, let’s leave it to God and not think that we have wasted our time if we are invisible and if our efforts in the Kingdom of God are invisible, or if God’s promises are not visible in our lives.
The last straw.
You may have heard the phrase ‘the straw that broke the camel’s back’? Its an idiom, a proverb, a commonly accepted knowledge of the fact, that there is ‘the last straw’ in situations, where a minor or routine action causes an unpredictably large and sudden reaction or result due to the cumulative effect of previous small actions.
I want to highlight that it’s a cumulative effect, which means that its a collection of all the previous actions, of minor or routine actions, meaning all of the previous actions combined are the cause of the final result, and all the actions were routine, daily, common, actions, including the last one. None were special, just that a visible result happened to be on the last action.
So, I encourage you and myself to just keep seeking God for the common and routine actions or tasks that we can do daily, don’t be discouraged that they are common and routine, that they are not special, that these action don’t produce a visible result, that these actions don’t propel you into the spotlight, into approval of people or the internet. Let the visibility of your fruit be decided by God (plus it’s easier to give glory to God for the invisible result rather than the visible one).
Common and routine actions.
Keep meeting with people and talk with them and help them dig through their problems, and keep doing it even if nothing seems to change in the person’s life, continue even if lack of result starts to irritate you, or starts to cause you to question whether all your efforts are pointless.
If it happens that you’ve been saying something to your child over and over and then some more famous guy than you just says the same thing once and your child all of a sudden gets it and runs to you to tell you how smart that famous guy is and how he changed his life, remember that that guy may have simply been the 151st hit of the hammer and you and your wife did the other 150 anyway. That guy may get the visible ‘glory’ but we know that it was a collective work and the fact that your child got what you wanted to communicate to him is what matters anyway.
Keep writing those Sunday School lessons, keep being humble and loving to your kids, keep studying the Bible and sharing your seemingly small non-world-changing revelations with friends, keep behaving like a Christian with unappreciative boss and co-workers, keep trying to have peace with everyone (Romans 12:18), keep waking up in the morning and praying to God even if things seem ‘dry’, keep …(fill in what you think you should keep doing).
Wages by labor, not by result.
6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. 9 For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.
1 Corinthians 3:6-9
Notice it says each will receive his wages according to his labor. Not according to result, but effort, faithfulness, notgivingupness, according to the unvalidated by the world persistence, because you know you are doing God’s work.
Its a collective work of all the parts of the Body of Christ, that is what brings the results, and it is God to decides who will be that “last hit” which will crack the rock, ‘the last straw’ that will bring the desired result.
And we are WARNED by Jesus Himself to not build a name for ourselves, a name that no matter what we say brings billions of views, or millions followers, or members, or likes, or comments, or whatever else. It’s not about our name and our results, but about the great work that the Father is doing and it’s about the name of Jesus. … at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth Philippians 2:10, not at your name or my name.
So don’t measure life of others or even your own life by the visible results.
Keep seeking God, keep working with what tasks are in front of you, keep helping and being a light and preaching and being an answer to people’s needs in all the ways you can. You do your work and maybe you are not a preacher, or not a great preacher, but the person you faithfully help now, the person you faithfully model the character of Jesus Christ to right now, that person is more likely to respond to a preacher’s call to follow Jesus later on.
But if you fail at your tasks to simply be a good Christian in the life of such a person, he or she may not respond to the preacher’s call at all when the opportunity comes. I heard that that is what happened to Ghandi, and Steve Jobs, and probably countless others.
Don’t devalue your common and routine work by your inability to see the collective effect of this work on the lives of others in the Kingdom of God. Recognition or visible result is not the indicator of you being exactly in the center of God’s will.
Do your part and let God decide who will be the last one in the chain of these collective actions.