I Stopped Trying After That

Nobody sits down and decides to stop trying. That is not how it works, and the man it happens to is almost always the last person to find out about it.

Picture him. Four years ago he went for a role and did not get it, and he handled it well at the time. He said the right things. He shook the hand.

And then something started that took about eighteen months and had no beginning.

He stopped putting his hand up for the extra job. Not always. Just the first time, and then it was easier the second time. He stopped reading the trade material at home, which he had done for eleven years. He stopped saying the thing in meetings that he could see and nobody else had. He started leaving at five exactly, which he had never done before, and he told himself that was healthy, and it partly was.

If you asked him today whether he had stopped trying, he would say no and he would mean it. He would say he still does the job properly, and he does.

But there is a version of him from five years ago that would not recognize how this one works.

And here is what makes it so difficult to see. Every single step was reasonable. Every one of them could be defended as maturity, or boundaries, or realism about how that place works. Nothing he did was wrong.

But taken together they are a withdrawal, and the withdrawal has cost him something that the passing over never did. The passing over cost him a role. The withdrawal has cost him four years of the part of the job he used to enjoy.

And nobody in that building has noticed, because he still does the work, and a man doing his work properly and a man doing his work properly with nothing in it look identical from the outside.

Weary in well doing

There is a sentence in Galatians written to people who had been doing something good for long enough to be tired of it, and the phrase Paul uses is very precise.

And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. (Galatians 6:9, King James Version)

Weary in well doing.

Not weary of hardship. Weary inside a good thing that has gone on a long time without visible return. That is a different exhaustion and it needed its own name, and Paul gave it one, which tells you it was common enough to write about.

And notice the second phrase. If we faint not. Fainting there is not collapse. It is the slow letting go, the loosening of the hands, which is exactly what eighteen months of reasonable decisions looks like.

You have a condition that Scripture named and warned about, and Galatians 6 calls it weariness in well doing rather than a failure of character (Galatians 6:9), and the Holy Spirit is the one who is the actual answer to a tiredness that a weekend does not touch.

And notice what the verse does not do. It does not promise a date, or a role, or a return in this financial year. It says in due season, which is honest and unspecific.

You have not been promised an outcome, and Galatians 6:9 says in due season rather than naming one (Galatians 6:9), and the Spirit of God is the one who keeps that from becoming a disappointment and lets it be a rest.

Who the work is for

There is a sentence in Colossians that settles the audience question, and it is aimed at people whose work was genuinely not appreciated by the people they did it for.

And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men. (Colossians 3:23)

Heartily. That is a word about wholeness rather than about enthusiasm. It means doing the thing with the whole of yourself in it.

And then the audience: as to the Lord, and not unto men.

Which is not saying the employer does not exist. It is saying that the employer is not the one who determines whether the effort was worth putting in, and that is precisely the calculation that a passed over man starts making without noticing.

You are working for an audience that was named long ago, and Colossians 3 says as to the Lord and not unto men in exactly those words (Colossians 3:23), and it is the Holy Spirit who makes that a practical fact on a Thursday rather than a poster.

And there is a line in Ecclesiastes that is blunter still.

Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might. (Ecclesiastes 9:10)

Whatever your hand finds. Not whatever gets recognized. Not whatever leads somewhere. Whatever is in front of the hand.

You have a standard that does not depend on where a thing leads, and Ecclesiastes 9 says whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might (Ecclesiastes 9:10), and the Spirit of God is the one who supplies the might when the reason for it is no longer visible.

What this is not

Let me be plain, because this could easily become a rebuke.

This is not saying he should work longer hours or go back to reading trade material at eleven at night. Leaving at five is fine. Boundaries are real and some of what he did was genuinely healthy.

It is also not saying that if he tries harder he will get the next one. That is a promise nobody can make, and it would turn effort into a transaction, which is the whole problem here.

And it is not saying the withdrawal was a sin. It was a wound behaving the way wounds behave.

And plainly: if the flatness has gone past work, if nothing has any color in it, if you cannot get out of bed, or if some part of you has begun wanting it all to stop, that is bigger than a job. Call or text the 988 crisis line, and say the true version out loud to a doctor or a counselor or a pastor you trust. That is not a failure of faith.

You are not being told to earn something, and Colossians 3 changes the audience rather than raising the standard (Colossians 3:23), and the Holy Spirit is the one who can restore an appetite for work without attaching a promise to it.