Devote Yourself to Good Works Even When It’s Hard

Two Ways to Perservere

One of the most difficult things in ministry settings and seeking to live for the mission of Christ is that we have unrealistic expectations of what that might look like—how quickly fruit comes, how people will receive our efforts to love and care for them.

And we’re not going to be very devoted to good works, we’re going to be tempted to despair, to be discouraged, to be frustrated, and to give up if we have this romanticized view of what mission looks like. So to start, we need to just have a realistic expectation—one that doesn’t paint this easy picture of mission but one that sees that God is at work even when we don’t always see the results and even when they’re far slower than we would want. We need to keep that about God because if we make it so much about results, we will burn out because we’re most likely not going to see the results in the timeframe that we want.

But if we keep our lives and the way that we pursue the mission of Christ and good works towards others as ultimately about worshiping God, we’ll be able to persevere even when it’s hard.

Another practical thing that’s important to do to foster devotion to good works is to build it as a habit in our lives. We don’t just naturally fall into doing good. So we want to orient our lives in such a way that we’re positioned to practice generosity, to show hospitality to the lonely. These things are priorities in our lives and habits built into our lives so that we’re not just waiting to fall into it—because we won’t.

I think when we have that pair of realistic expectations along with faith in God to work and then also the very practical step of making choices and plans and building habits to incorporate ministry into everyday life, it’s going to allow us to have long and fruitful ministry.

Amy DiMarcangelo is the author of Go and Do Likewise: A Call to Follow Jesus in a Life of Mercy and Mission.

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