Some nights the sums start on their own. You lie awake with the fan turning overhead, and your mind opens a spreadsheet. On one side sit the costs: years of prayer, and years of getting up when your body begged you to stay down. On the other side sit the returns. The column looks thin.
You wonder whether any of it counts.
The question rarely arrives in church. It finds you on the drive home from a class reunion, after your old classmates talked about the new condo and the promotion. An old friend turned and asked what you are doing now, and you had nothing to report except that you are still here. It finds you in the hospital car park, engine off, before you go up to the ward again.
Paul wrote to people carrying the same question. He ended his great chapter on the resurrection with a sentence meant for tired people:
"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)
"Not in vain" means not empty. What you give in the Lord belongs to the Lord, and he keeps what belongs to him. Its worth does not depend on what you can see.
Paul's word for labour means toil to the point of exhaustion, which stretches the work of the Lord far beyond pulpits and Sunday school.
Perhaps your labour this week was getting out of bed. It took everything you had. You brushed your teeth and took your medication while your own mind argued against each step. In the Lord, it was not in vain.
Perhaps you care for a parent who no longer knows your name. You wipe her face and sort the pill boxes. You lose your temper, then apologise to a woman who will remember neither. In the Lord, it is not in vain.
You may have prayed the same prayer for eleven years and heard nothing back. You may keep a plate aside at Chinese New Year for a son who has not come home. Paul makes no promise that the prayer will be answered in your lifetime, or that the chair will fill. Success is a score we keep. "Not in vain" is a reality God guarantees.
Success is a score we keep. "Not in vain" is a reality God guarantees.
Most of this labour will never reach a eulogy. The person who speaks at your funeral will not mention the mornings you got out of bed on the bad days. God saw each of those mornings, and he does not forget them.
You may feel you should be further along by now, because other people recovered faster and other people's prayers were answered. You are tired of being tired. God does not grade the pace of your healing. He knows how slow recovery is, and how grief keeps its own calendar.
"Let nothing move you" can sound like a demand to feel strong. For many of us, standing firm looks more like holding on, limping and still reaching for God. Some days it means letting others hold on with you: a friend who sits beside you, or a counsellor who helps you carry what you cannot carry alone. Reaching for help is part of standing firm. So is rest. God rested on the seventh day, and he offers the same rest to the weary.
When Israel felt forgotten, God answered with an image cut into his own hands:
"See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me." (Isaiah 49:16)
In Isaiah's day that was a picture, and on the cross it became flesh: the hands that hold your labour carry the marks of the nails.
The hands that hold your labour carry the marks of the nails.
Tonight the fan may turn again, and the old sums may start. The ledger belongs to Christ now, and he keeps it with scarred hands. Whatever you offered him today, even the smallest thing, he has already received.
At the reunion, you had nothing to report except that you are still here. In the Lord, even that is not in vain.
