You will not receive your reward until …

Waiting is difficult to do. 

And yet, in most of the significant areas of life, the rewards or consequences for our behavior are not immediate. 

The best illustration of this is our health. A good diet and exercise may have a limited impact in a year, but doing it every day for 40 years will have a cumulative effect. On the flip side, neglecting your health will result in complications in old age that can’t be undone. 

People who commit to living for Jesus must clearly understand delayed returns. Our obedience to him rarely produces any immediate gratification. Instead, the rewards are seen after serving him in love for a lifetime. And many will not be experienced until after we die and we stand in the presence of Jesus.

Understanding this will enable us to walk through some uneventful seasons along with some dark nights. The light is always at the END of the tunnel, and it takes a long journey before we experience the joy of our destination.