What's the Difference?
After months of tears, sweat, and toil, the house renovation is nearly complete. At times, the project felt like it would never end, but now, the end is in sight, and we couldn’t be happier.
Last week, we invited the realtor to come by and take a look at the work we’ve done. He was extremely impressed and teased that we should go into the house-flipping business. (No, thank you!!!) As we walked him through the house and pointed out the improvements, I was overcome (and not for the first time, mind you) with the lack of evidence of my personal toil and labor.
Jason, as you can imagine, did the construction work. While he was working on big projects like remodeling the bathrooms, smoothing out the ceilings, and building a back deck, I was busy with seemingly insignificant tasks like cleaning up behind him, toting and fetching tools and supplies, touching up paint, attaching the light and outlet covers, and things like that. All necessary tasks, but none of them worthy of awe. In fact, most of them were such little things I don’t even remember what they were.
So, as we look back over the progress we’ve made, I can’t help but feel I didn’t pull my weight. I wonder if I made any difference at all. While I know I put in more hours than I can count, there is little to no visible fruit for my labor.
When I conveyed my discouragement to Jason, he assured me that my efforts had not been in vain. My contributions—though not outwardly obvious—were instrumental in the overall accomplishments. He convinced me while others may not be able to recognize what I had done, they would certainly notice if those things hadn’t been done. The windows would look horrible if they hadn’t been scraped, sanded and repainted. The floors would be covered with paint and who knows what else if I hadn’t taken the hours to cover every inch with paper and seal the edges with tape. Progress would have been slowed. Messes would have grown to Goliath-sized disasters. In other words, it wasn’t what others could see that revealed my hard work but rather what they didn’t.
Friends, if anyone knows how discouraging it is to pour your heart into something and not see the desired results, it’s me. I’ve been through my fair share of pity parties where I sat and cried, “Is it worth it, Lord? Am I even making a difference?” So many times, it seems like the effort is in vain. And I have a feeling I’m preaching to the choir.
You know what it’s like to spend weeks on that project and earn nothing more than a quick, “Nice job.”
You understand the frustration of pouring your heart and life into your children only to have them resent you for it.
You’ve felt the pain of sitting through an award ceremony for someone who let you do all the work and then took all the credit.
You know what it’s like to feel insignificant. Unsuccessful. Unimportant. Like your work doesn’t matter, and no one cares.
I want to remind you of the truth Jason helped me to see. You matter. Your work matters. Your efforts matter. It’s not in vain. Though the world may not see the fruits of your labor, they are there. And maybe—as was the case with our house renovation—those fruits are not so much in what’s visible but what’s invisible. We may never know this side of Heaven how much our efforts have impacted others, but we can be assured that our labor is not in vain in the Lord. We have God’s Word on it!
“Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. ”