“And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”
— Galatians 6:9 (ESV)
Doing good is supposed to feel rewarding, and sometimes it does. But anyone who has kept at it for long knows the other side of it — the slow leak of energy that comes from showing up again and again when nobody’s clapping and nothing seems to change. You keep being patient with the difficult relative. You keep serving in the role no one volunteers for. You keep choosing kindness in a workplace that doesn’t return it. And one ordinary Thursday you wake up and find the well has gone dry.
What’s striking about this verse is that Paul doesn’t scold the weariness. He assumes it. “Let us not grow weary” is the language of someone who knows good people get tired. He isn’t demanding more enthusiasm; he’s steadying us for the long haul with a promise about timing and harvest.
That single word — harvest — reframes the whole thing. It says the good you’re doing isn’t vanishing into nothing. It’s seed. And seed has a season.
What This Verse Means
These words come near the end of Paul’s letter to the churches in Galatia, written in the earliest years of the church to believers who were being pressured to trade the freedom of grace for a checklist of religious rules. By chapter six, Paul has turned from theology to ordinary life: bearing one another’s burdens, restoring people gently, providing for those who teach, and caring practically for the household of faith.
The image driving the chapter is sowing and reaping. “Whatever one sows, that will he also reap,” Paul writes a few verses earlier. Verse 9 applies that farming logic to the unglamorous work of doing good. A farmer doesn’t plant a field on Monday and dig it up Tuesday in frustration that there’s no wheat yet. He trusts the gap between sowing and harvest. Paul is asking the Galatians — and us — to bring that same patience to a life of love.
For its first readers, this was about not giving up on a community that was hard to love. For us, the application is just as concrete: the parenting whose results you won’t see for twenty years, the faithfulness in a marriage that isn’t easy this season, the generosity that feels unnoticed. “In due season” is God’s timing, not ours — and the only condition attached is that we “do not give up.”
The Verse in Other Translations
NIV:
“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”
The NIV’s “at the proper time” underscores that the harvest is scheduled by Someone other than us — there is a right moment we can’t rush.
KJV:
“And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”
“If we faint not” pictures a runner about to collapse, framing perseverance as a matter of not fainting before the finish line.
NLT:
“So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.”
The NLT adds the phrase “a harvest of blessing,” spelling out that what we finally reap is not a burden but a gift.
How to Live This Out Today
First, name the specific good you’re tempted to quit. Weariness is vague; resolve needs to be specific. Is it a person, a habit, a commitment? Bring that one thing to mind and decide that today, just today, you won’t give up on it.
Second, shrink the horizon. You don’t have to do good forever this afternoon — you only have to do it once more. Faithfulness is built out of single days strung together, not heroic bursts.
Third, tend your own soul so the well can refill. Even Jesus withdrew to rest and pray. Doing good without ever receiving good from God is a recipe for the very weariness this verse warns against.
Fourth, let the promise of harvest do its work. When you can’t see results, preach the timeline to yourself: seed, season, harvest. Your labor is on a schedule you didn’t set and can trust.
Related Verses
2 Thessalonians 3:13 — Paul repeats the same charge almost word for word: “do not grow weary in doing good,” showing how central this encouragement was to the early church.
1 Corinthians 15:58 — a direct promise that “in the Lord your labor is not in vain,” the assurance underneath Galatians 6:9.
Isaiah 40:31 — those who wait on the Lord “shall renew their strength,” God’s answer to the depletion this verse names.
Matthew 11:28 — Jesus’ invitation to the weary to come to Him for rest, the place our strength to keep going is restored.
A Prayer Based on Galatians 6:9
Father, You know I am tired of doing good with so little to show for it. Thank You that You don’t shame my weariness but meet it. Renew the strength I’ve spent. Help me to keep sowing in faith, trusting that You have set a season for the harvest. When I’m tempted to give up, hold me steady one more day. I believe my labor is not wasted in You. Amen.
Questions to Reflect On
What good thing are you closest to giving up on right now, and what would “not growing weary” look like for it this week?
Where have you been demanding a harvest in a season that God may still be calling a time of sowing?
How are you letting God refill you, so that your good work flows from rest rather than sheer willpower?
Before you go, turn this reflection into prayer — pray today’s prayer for when your hard work goes unnoticed.