Satan doesn’t want you to hear this when you’re experiencing setbacks

Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:58)

After losing a dramatic civil rights showdown with President Lyndon B. Johnson, Fannie Lou Hamer thought her work was in vain. To refuel her for the fight, her employer sent her on a trip to Africa.

There, resting her head on the back of a bathtub, Hamer marveled at how far God had brought her since her days picking cotton on a Mississippi plantation. Who would ever have thought that she would find herself halfway around the world relaxing in a beach bungalow on a sprawling estate in Guinea? 

Suddenly, a knock at the door interrupted her bath. “Fannie!” called the voice on the other side of the door. “The president is here. Can you come?” 

Hamer let out a laugh. “Yeah right! Tell His Excellence that I’ll see him in a couple of hours. I’m having my bath, darling.” 

But the awkward pause on the other side of the door let her know this wasn’t a joke. President Sekou Touré of Guinea was waiting. 

With a gasp, Hamer shot out of the tub and reached for her towel, getting dressed as quickly as she could. Her hair was still dripping wet when she stepped into the room where Touré was waiting. He recognized Hamer instantly, moving toward her to offer a kiss on both cheeks. 

An overwhelmed Hamer burst into tears on Touré’s chest. All her life, she’d been treated as a second-class citizen by the leaders in her country. At almost this very moment, the mayor in Hamer’s hometown in Mississippi was telling her neighbors he hoped the Africans would “boil her in tar.” But here in the distant land of Guinea, her work was being celebrated.

There’s a principle embedded in that for you, believer. Even when you experience failure and setbacks in your work, so long as that work is done for God’s glory and the good of others, it will always have an impact in the seemingly distant land God calls the kingdom of heaven. As Paul says in today’s passage, any work done “in the Lord is not in vain.”

What are you working on that feels as if it has been in vain? Maybe it’s a product you’re launching that isn’t gaining traction. Maybe it’s a coworker you’ve been faithfully sharing the gospel with who seems to have zero interest in Christ. Or maybe it’s an injustice in your industry that you can’t seem to overcome. 

Romans 4:20-21 says that Abraham “gave glory to God,” simply by having faith that God would “do what he had promised.” God has promised that if your work is “in the Lord,” it “is not in vain.” Glorify God by declaring your faith in that promise today!