In a conversation I had with my wife’s sister a year ago about how God had blessed our respective adult children, I remarked to her that I was glad she was enjoying the fruit of her labor. In using the word labor, I was referring to the hard work over two decades in raising her three children. It was only after I had said it that I recognized that since she had given birth to these kids, there were labor pains involved.

I recalled a verse from the Old Testament (Ps. 128:2 NLT), where God offers hope to the Israelites during their captivity. He said that there would come a day when they would once again “enjoy the fruit of their labor.”

I invite you to join me in a quick dive into this Old Testament concept that is applicable to us now. I will discuss God’s promise to his people during their exile, reflect on our own captivity, and offer hope of restoration.

God’s Promise to Israel

In context, these Israelites, as a direct consequence of their rebellion towards God, were taken abruptly into captivity. They were forced to leave their farms and homes for a land far away. Their captors went back to Israel and took the harvest and their homes from them. They reaped what they did not sow.

Thus, the Israelites did not get to enjoy the fruit of their own labor. Someone else, who did not put in the hard work, was going to enjoy it instead of them. God was reminding them that a day would come, after their long captivity, where all would be restored. The biblical principle of sowing and reaping would once again be seen in the land.

Let me offer some brief observations about those times when we do not enjoy good results from our work and how God promises to bring restoration in his time and for his glory.

Our Own Captivity

So, let’s bring this into a contemporary context. How would you feel if this were your experience?

Can you imagine completing a major construction project and then someone else receiving all the credit and the monetary bonus that came with it? Can you fathom writing a book and having someone else’s name on the cover or painting a masterpiece that was not attributed to you? That would be horrible. These examples highlight the pain of losing the benefits of what you worked so hard to achieve.

These situations may be extreme. However, don’t we all face disappointment when we don’t reap what we think we have sown as a result of our labor? How does a farmer feel when the crops don’t measure up to last year’s? How does a student feel when he doesn’t get the grade he thought he deserved? How does a parent feel when a child makes a bad decision or doesn’t live up to their potential?

We need to be reminded that in the time in which we find ourselves, in-between Jesus’s first and second comings, work will be harder than necessary due to Adam’s sin, everyone else’s, as well as our own. However, we must never forget that Jesus will return one day. When he does, everything will be restored.

God’s Promise of Restoration

One might say that sometimes our work seems to be fruitless. One might say that our efforts are in vain.

The writer of Ecclesiastes understood this concept quite well. He observed, “the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind” (Eccl. 2:17).

However, there is a great promise in one of the Apostle Paul’s letters in the New Testament that should give us hope in the same way as the promise in Ps. 128:2 gave hope to the Israelites. Paul exhorts, “Therefore, my dear brothers, 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 Cor. 15:58).

My wish is to exhort you in a similar fashion. I realize that some of us may feel like we are also in captivity, exiled to a foreign land or even wandering around in a desert place where there is no hope. If this is your experience right now, you should be reminded of Jesus’s word of encouragement to his disciples: “In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world” (Jn. 16:33).

God promises that there will come a day, perhaps sooner than you expect, either in this life or the life to come, when all things will be made new. There will be no sorrow, no pain, no limitations, or no injustice. The work that you did, with the Lord, in the Lord, and for the Lord will not have been done in vain.

Editor’s note: This article has been republished from the author’s blog with permission.