Issues: All those who will be finishers have in common a certain conviction, a certain quality, and a certain hope.

The harvest is waiting; the laborers are few—of that we are all agreed. What is needed are more laborers—people who will spend their time, energy, and effort to help others find Christ and go on to maturity in him.

But this kind of laboring is hard work, and those who persevere in it are few. What will it take to be one of those who finish well—to be someone who, years from now, is building relationships in his or her senior citizens group in hopes of leading someone to Christ?

As a child of the sixties, I was ignited with the vision of changing the world for Jesus Christ in my generation. With the enthusiasm of a fresh recruit, I left the ranks of disillusioned peace marchers and joined those who would serve an eternal Kingdom.

My fire was fueled by the conversion of some close friends. Leading a Bible study group in my sorority that grew in numbers every week also encouraged my efforts.

Every other aspect of my life paled in comparison. How could interior decorating or teaching or computer science compare with seeing someone pass from death into Life, or helping a woman discover the Scriptures for herself?

Ten years and two children have given me a broader perspective. My commitment to helping people find Christ and grow in him is nonetheless zealous, but now I see clearly the tenacity and dogged determination it will take to end as steadfastly as I began.

For one thing, I see that laboring for Christ is unique and can scarcely be compared with any other pursuit in life. If you spend ten hours a week developing computer programs, certain results will probably follow. As you complete the task, you have the satisfaction of crossing it off your do-list, and of taking a tangible product to your client or employer. If the work is satisfactory, he will pat you on the back, hand you your paycheck, and say with a smile, "Well done! Thanks for the effort."

The picture is less clear in spiritual labor. Sometimes you actually appear to go backwards in terms of tangible results. It's possible, after doing all you know to do, to have fewer people in your Bible study group after you finish than when you started.

Anyone who has given spiritual help to another person knows that all the hard work in the world will not guarantee success. You can help and pray and lead and demonstrate, but in the final analysis the other person must choose whether to go on with the Lord. No secret formula can ensure the outcome.

So considering the uniqueness of the task before us—laboring with the Lord in the vineyard of men and women's hearts—what will enable us to say with Paul, "I have finished the race"?

First, we must be convinced that the God who has called us will also enable us to do the task. Paul was careful to remind timid Timothy that God "has saved us and called us . . . not because of anything we have done, but because of his own purpose and grace" (2 Timothy 1:9). What an encouragement this can be for us! God has not called us to this task because of our gifts and abilities, but out of his grace. He saves us by his grace, and he uses us by his grace.

Paul said in a similar fashion to the Corinthians, "Since through God's mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart" (2 Corinthians 4:1). This can be a difficult truth to grasp, but in the wake of any discouragement it is reassuring to pray, "Lord, thank you that this ministry is a gift from your hand, and that you have called me to this task by your mercy and grace."

Second, we must stick with it. In helping others find Christ and grow in him, there is no substitute for persistence and perseverance.

"Most of what I've learned about helping others grow," a friend said to me, "has come through trial and error—and mostly error, at that. I just have to get up and try again."

A number of years ago I set up a coffee party in my home, hoping I could get to know some of the women in my neighborhood. After delivering twenty-five invitations to mailboxes and making enough finger foods for a football team, I sat back and waited for the deluge of women at my front door.

Only two women came, one of whom I already knew, and together the three of us ate, drank, and tried to ignore my empty living room.

When they left, I sat down and evaluated my choices. I could have concluded that God just wasn't interested in whether I got to know these people—but I knew better. Or I could have chalked up the morning to experience and decided to try again with a different method. Now, years and many neighborhood get-togethers later, I've found that most people respond better if invited personally, face to face. The less we know them the more important it is to establish contact in this way. But I would never have learned this principle if I had given up and taken personally the failure of that first coffee.

When Paul wrote Timothy on the subject of laboring, he used the farmer, the soldier, and the athlete as illustrations. Each of these must persist in commitment to his work in spite of difficult conditions, setbacks, or obstacles. Each one must lay aside many permissible but less important activities to give himself wholeheartedly to his goal, whether it be winning a prize, winning a war, or harvesting a crop—even though such single-mindedness makes him slightly out of step with others around him. The same is true for those who would persevere in investing their lives in the spiritual welfare of others.

Third, we must leave the results to God. Our culture worships the goddess of Success, and her presence is most often thought of in terms of numbers, size, and dollars. If we carry this idolatry into our evaluation of our spiritual labor, many of us will mistakenly conclude our efforts are for nought.

In God's way of thinking, success isn't synonymous with size and numbers. He is able to save "by many or by few" (1 Samuel 14:6).

Elisabeth Elliot reminds us that Christ described God's kingdom as "leaven and seed, things which work slowly and out of sight. We long for the visible evidence of our effectiveness, and when it is not forthcoming, we are tempted to conclude that our efforts never had anything to do with the kingdom."

Not long ago a friend and I were studying together Christ's parable of the four soils, observing that only one of them produced fruit—a discouraging success rate of only twenty-five percent. She looked up and soberly remarked, "I'm not sure it's worth the effort to help other people grow spiritually. Maybe I should channel my life in a different direction, one that pays more visible dividends."

If we look at this success rate from the common business viewpoint, we conclude that she was right. The return does not warrant the expenditure. But the missing factor in that kind of thinking is God and what he can do through the life of even one person wholly submitted to him.

"The least of you will become a thousand, the smallest a mighty nation" (Isaiah 60:22). God specializes in working wonders through the least and the smallest.

The compulsion to "count noses" and to see tangible results often stems from a personal need to build up a weak self-image or to improve our status with God. We want to know that our service counts, that our life is significant.

What a travesty, though, to depend on visible results to assure us of what God has already demonstrated in Christ. The purchase agreement for our lives was sealed with the blood of Christ, and the result of our labor and service can never add to or take away from that.

God has called us, and as we minister out of obedience and faithfulness to him he will bring forth from our lives the fruit which pleases him—in his own timing and in his own way. In heaven we will hear, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant"—not "thou good and successful servant."

When we fail to leave the results of our labor to God, sordid emotions ensnare us. Envy rears its head as others receive more recognition and response. Impatience engulfs us as we pressure those around us to take steps toward maturity in order to prove our effectiveness.

"Here I was," a friend said, "out in this prairie, a thousand miles away from home and all my roots, ministering to college students. I kept trying to figure out why I felt so resentful when they weren't responding the way I had hoped.

"Finally I saw that emotionally I had been holding them responsible for whether it was worth it for me to be here ministering to them. I realized I had to submit myself to God's plan for my life, regardless of the results."

How we need to get our own ego out of the way! It is only our union with Christ, like the branch's union to the vine, that brings forth fruit. "The full flood of life," Oswald Chambers wrote, "is not in seeing God's work succeed, but in perfect understanding of God, and the communion with him that Jesus himself had."

We must leave to God not only the results of our labor but also the reward. He has his own compensation program for spiritual labor, and though it doesn't include retirement programs and pension plans it is nonetheless real. The Lord accused the priests and people of Israel of forgetting this fact: "You have said, ‘It is futile to serve God. What did we gain by carrying out his requirements?'" (Malachi 3:14). In 1 Corinthians 3:8 we are reminded that God rewards us not according to tangible results, but according to our labor.

One of the cardinal virtues in the Christian life is hope—the expectation that whet is longed for will become, by God's grace, reality. Our joy is not in what we see now in our own lives and in the lives of those we minister to, but in what we hope to see. And "if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently" (Romans 8:25).

As we wait, we labor—remembering the exhortation, "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up" (Galatians 6:9).

Paula Rinehart is a Navigator staff member in Tulsa.

Fruitful Labor: In Tune with God

Review before the Lord your thoughts on the article above. You may want to use the following verses to help guide your prayer.

All hard work brings a profit (Proverbs 14:23).

Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for your work will be rewarded, declares the Lord (Jeremiah 31:16).

The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor (1 Corinthians 3:8).

If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me (Philippians 1:22).

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men (Colossians 3:23).

See to it that you complete the work you have received in the Lord (Colossians 4:17).

For this we labor and strive, that we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, and especially of those who believe (1 Timothy 4:10).