“Let us not grow weary in doing good,”

You may know the rest of Galatians 6:9 and wonder why I’m not including it here. The reason is simple: for the last three years, the part that carried me, when I was exhausted, depleted, and barely climbing forward, was just this first phrase, right up to the comma.

In the middle of a season marked by confusion, betrayal, failed leadership, and rejection, this sentence began to replay in my mind as I drove through the chaos of Dallas traffic each morning on my way to work. The weight of life and the ache of loneliness pressed so heavily that I felt tempted to give up on everything. Yet, strangely, this verse kept resurfacing. I didn’t go looking for it, but once I recognized its value, I held onto it like a lifeline.

True to myself, I didn’t start with the verse in order. If you’ve known me long enough, you know I rarely do things in the expected order, like starting a book in the middle or jumping to whatever chapter first pulls me in. Who says you have to begin at the beginning? So I started here: “in doing good.” I just marinated in it.

Despite the lack of direction or support from leadership. Despite the pain of overhearing gossip from people who claimed to love you. Despite political tension rising and divisions deepening with people in my own circle. Despite real harm done. The lifeline was this: “in doing good.” Don’t you DARE give up!

It was as if the writer knew how hard it would be, hard as hell, and still insisted: don’t you dare give up in doing good.

Over time, this phrase took on many layers of meaning. It meant choosing not to defend myself when mocked, trusting instead in what I knew to be right. It meant refusing to pursue vindication after being wronged and then lied about. And it meant something as ordinary as exercising patience and obeying the law on the road—even when I was exhausted in Dallas traffic, desperate to get home, and wishing everyone else would just move out of my way. It meant not slandering those who slandered me, even when I wanted to even the score. It meant not letting depression drag me under, but choosing to do good toward myself instead.

It means countless quiet choices we’re often tempted to abandon because we’re tired, wounded, or craving justice on our own terms. And still, the call remains: may God help us never to give up on doing good, knowing we won’t regret it. We WONT regret it. There is a promised reward here. Go look up the rest, if you don’t know it. Following this wise statement promises to make our own small lives and the world around us so much better. Even in the weight of pain, let’s do our part and not grow weary of doing good, to ourselves and to those around us.