On Not Growing Weary in Well-Doing

We are nearing the end of the school year. It is the season of late evenings, multiple commitments, papers and exams, recitals and long practices, and, often enough, bone weariness. Are you tired? Are you trying to endure till summer?

The Apostle Paul wrote these encouraging words at the beginning of his First Letter to the Thessalonians: “We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers, remembering without ceasing your work of faith, labor of love, and endurance of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of our God and Father” (1:2-3).

Our labor for our families and for our school are a labor of love that call for endurance. The Scriptures encourage us to endure to the end and be faithful to the Lord. The things you, as a parent, do to serve your children can be exhausting, but parenthood is a high calling that is worthy of hard work. And the work you do to educate your child so that he or she will be trained with a classical mind is well worth it also. So enduring to the end in our labor of love is our calling.

Pastor John Piper encourages us with these words, from a sermon on this passage in 1 Thessalonians:

Absolutely indispensable . . . is the power to keep going month after month, year after year, even decade after decade in the path of obedience. And for many of us that will mean long-haul endurance in a particular ministry in spite of emotional and relational and spiritual and financial obstacles, even when the encouragements of the limelight and the attention and the glory and the admiration are gone, and we feel like the joys of life are passing us by.

Without the endurance of hope, the work of faith and the labor of love will prove to be no real work of God but only the love of the limelight. We do not live in a generation that puts a high premium on endurance in relationships or jobs or in ministry. And we are very much children of our age. If we follow Scripture here, we will be swimming against the tide. So be it! This is a call for the endurance of the saints!

I have been cheering the Regents students on lately with these words: “Finish strong!” Let’s all finish the year strong as parents and teachers also. Our work of faith and labor of love call for endurance. I pray that the Lord will give you that endurance till the end!