Nothing to Show for It

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

Imagine giving two years of your life to something: leaving home, living rough, praying for hours, travelling hundreds of miles through forests and over rivers. And imagine seeing almost nothing happen.

That was Brainerd’s experience. At Kaunaumeek, and then at the Forks of the Delaware, a few people were interested. Some came to listen. But there was no great turning to God. He made two long, hard journeys to the Susquehanna River to speak to the people there, and those seemed fruitless too.

In June 1745, looking back over the previous year, he wrote honestly: “not having had any considerable appearance of special success in either of those places, my spirits were depressed.”

It would have been easy to quit. He was ill. He was lonely. He had no degree and no prospects. Everything seemed to have failed. Plenty of people would have decided that God hadn’t really called them, or that they had got it wrong.

But Brainerd kept going. Not because he felt successful, but because he believed God had sent him and that the results belonged to God. He kept preaching, kept travelling, kept praying for people who didn’t seem to be listening.

This is one of the most important lessons in his story, and one of the least exciting. A lot of faithfulness looks like nothing much is happening. Praying for a friend for years. Being kind to someone who is never kind back. Turning up to serve when nobody notices. Studying hard when results seem far away. Waiting.

We live in a world that loves instant results: quick likes, fast replies, overnight success. God usually works more slowly, like a farmer’s field. Paul wrote: don’t grow weary of doing good, because at the right time you will reap a harvest, if you don’t give up.

Brainerd didn’t know it in June 1745, but he was standing right on the edge of the harvest. He had just arrived at a small, scattered Delaware settlement in New Jersey called Crossweeksung. Within weeks, everything would change.

One thing to do this week: think of something good you have been doing that seems to be getting nowhere: praying for someone, trying to make peace, working at something hard. Write down why you started it. Then ask God for strength to keep going, and don’t give up this week.