Due Season

"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up" (Gal 6:9).

In an agrarian society, where people live directly from the land by sowing and reaping, Paul's words make perfect sense and no explanation is needed.  They understood that there was a time to sow and separate time to reap.  They understood that in between the sowing and reaping came a period of time where cultivating what was planted was necessary for the crop to produce a harvest in the future.

In a post-industrial society like we live in today, we expect to stop by MacDonald's, talk in a box and have the food ready when we get to window.  We order a product from Amazon at night in our PJs and look for it to arrive to our door in 48 hours.  We can call Domino's and have a pizza delivered in 30 minutes.  We just aren't very keen on the idea of doing something today and then wait through a entire season of perhaps months or even years for results.

Paul's open-ended approach of "Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people" (v. 10), waiting for positive results or real change to occur in another's life, or in the life of the church, is just foreign to our "once and done" mentality.

However, true change and lasting development requires time and timing.  There are seasons for planting and then there are seasons for reaping - the two do not occur simultaneously.  The fact that you put in your best effort today and see no results whatsoever is not particularly evidence of failure but likely the necessity of time to take root and develop.

You've tried hard, you've put in your best effort but you are seeing no results.  You want to give up, but don't.  Keep doing good, keep faithfully laying what you do and why you do it before the Lord.  At the proper time, if it is to be, God will make it grow (cf. 1 Cor 3:6).  Even if the results you had in mind do not come to fruition, "we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him" (Rom 8:28).  As my mother used to say, "good comes to them that wait."  Jus' Say'n.