Brother, it was so good to meet with you this morning. I’ve been praying for you. I know the work is hard, the people are resistant to the gospel, and there are times when the burden of ministry seems overwhelming.
David Livingstone wrote to his father on 5th July, 1848: “For a long time I felt much depressed after preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ to apparently insensible hearts; but now I like to dwell on the love of the great Mediator, for it always warms my own heart, and I know that the gospel is the power of God–the great means which He employs for the regeneration of our ruined world.”
Do not confuse hardness of soil with failure of ministry. Sow the Word. Love the people. Endure hardship. Leave the results with God. Christ is there with you, and labor done in Him is never in vain.
I want to remind you that God didn’t call you to produce results; He called you to be faithful. “So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth” (1 Cor. 3:7). Your responsibility is to sow the seed faithfully, love the people, preach Christ, and trust God with the harvest.
Paul wrote, “Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart” (2 Cor. 4:1). “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair” (vv. 8–9). Feeling weary does not mean you are failing. Some of God’s most faithful servants have walked through seasons where they saw very little visible fruit.
On 18th of June 1853, Livingstone wrote in his journal: “Discoveries and inventions are cumulative. Another century must present a totally different aspect from the present. And when we view the state of the world and its advancing energies in the light afforded by childlike, or call it childish faith, we see the earth filling with the knowledge of the Lord, aye, all nations seeing His glory and bowing before Him whose right it is to reign. Our work and its fruits are cumulative. We work towards another state of things. Future missionaries will be rewarded by conversions for every sermon. We are their pioneers and helpers. Let them not forget the watchmen of the night, who worked when all was gloom and no evidence of success in the way of conversion cheered our path. They will doubtless have more light than we, but we served our Master earnestly and proclaimed the same gospel as they will do.”
William Carey once described himself simply as a man who could “plod.” Shortly before his death, he wrote to his biographer, “I can plod. I can persevere in any definite pursuit. To this I owe everything.” Sometimes that is missionary life: you get up, pray, preach, love people, and keep going. John Paton wrote, “The Lord never lost patience with us, and we durst not therefore lose patience with them.”
Like you said this morning, you may be planting a seed that another man will one day harvest. You may be breaking ground that has been hard for generations. Do not measure the value of your ministry only by what you can see today.
Isaiah 55:11 promises that God’s Word “shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose.” And 1 Corinthians 15:58 reminds us that our labor “is not in vain in the Lord.”
Brother, Christ is with you. He sees the unseen work, the prayers, the disappointments of those like —— who proves to be a tare instead of wheat, the conversations that feel like they go nowhere, and the sacrifices nobody else knows about. Keep your eyes on Him. Keep sowing. Keep loving. Keep preaching Christ.
We love you, we believe in the work God has called you to, and we are standing with you in prayer.
Your Loving Brother,
Phil
Zambia Hunt 
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