Don’t just keep going. Do so because you know the bigger picture, because if no seed is sown at all, you can cry all you want and absolutely nothing will happen. It’s not the tears that produce fruit, or even the faithfulness of the sower, but the faithfulness of the One who alone can take our feeble, every day, day in and day out work, and do something glorious in His timing.

“He who goes out weeping”

To live in light of eternity means to live every day with an awareness that you will one day reap unspeakable joy when you see the face of Christ.

The joy in that moment will outweigh every sorrow of today.

This constant, because-you-know-you-must, because-if-you-quit-today-things-will-fall-apart, kind of tearful sowing, and the sadness that comes with it, will seem as nothing in comparison.

We must continue teaching, explaining, working, waiting, listening, learning, repenting, forgiving, growing, and perhaps even stumble a little in the process.

Keep loving when no love returns.

Keep instilling those values into your children that don’t seem to stick the first, second or third time. Eventually they will.

Keep getting up in the morning and going to a job you wish was more enjoyable and for which you wish you received more pay, because your family really does depend on you.

Keep telling that lost one about the love and forgiveness found in the gospel. Keep serving your community even when they don’t serve you.

It’s those things that matter most in life that challenge us in the deepest ways and tempt us to quit. The everyday stuff of life that brings us to tears does so because we understand what’s at stake if we were to stop.

Continue in God’s strength. Sow because you know you must. The reward in the end has no equal.

For “he who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him.”

And “In due season you will reap if you faint not.”

Don’t just keep going. Do so because you know the bigger picture, because if no seed is sown at all, you can cry all you want and absolutely nothing will happen. It’s not the tears that produce fruit, or even the faithfulness of the sower, but the faithfulness of the One who alone can take our feeble, every day, day in and day out work, and do something glorious in His timing.

God is doing something magnificent with each seed you sow, even when you don’t see it.

Keep sowing, tears and all.

There will be shouts of joy.

There will be a harvest of laugher and rejoicing. Maybe not today or tomorrow or the next day, but soon.

Joel Littlefield is a church planter in Bath, Maine. This article appeared on his blog and is used with permission.