Don't Grow Weary in Doing Good

Biblical Integration in Professional Fields

Context: I was recently asked to speak at a student organization in our school of Pharmacy. These students are at various places in their education and careers and are training to be experts and practitioners in their field. My remarks are aimed at the interpersonal elements of the workplace and how someone’s personal relationship with Christ might inform and shape those interactions. So, this is targeted to pharmacy students but it was also a chance to consider some of the theological resources that can guide you in any professional context.

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Title: Don’t Grow Weary in Doing Good
Key Text: Galatians 5:16–6:10
Big Idea: Your Christian Worldview provides the means and motivation for you to serve others as a person and as a professional.

It’s very easy to absorb the assumption that faith belongs in the private sphere while your profession operates in a neutral, value-free space. In that framework, Christianity becomes something you practice in church or in personal devotion, while your profession is simply technical, clinical, and detached from the network of your deeper convictions.

This strict division between the sacred and the secular is not a biblical category. Your goal should be to push against this as an absolute dichotomy. Scripture does not recognize a version of you that is “spiritual” on Sunday and merely “professional” on Monday. You are one whole person, shaped by one Lord, living before one God in every lecture hall, lab, and pharmacy counter.

The aim is not to keep faith in a separate compartment, but to see that Christ lays claim to every square inch of your life, including your work. Indeed, no part of your life stands outside the authority of Christ.

In this passage from Galatians, Paul reminds us that the Spirit does not merely help you “be religious.” Rather, the Spirit makes you a certain kind of person who then is able to do a certain kind of good.

As a Person: Becoming Who You Already Are in Christ

The world needs Christians who have been made new in Christ, who are learning to walk by the Spirit, and who bring that Spirit-shaped life into ordinary work in ordinary places with ordinary people.

A few reflections on this passage to orient us:

• The distinguishing mark of a new covenant Christian is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit

• Though we often think of the “fruits of the Spirit,” Paul here speaks of the fruit (singular) of the Spirit.

• This means that the means by which you will be able to bear the fruit of the Spirit is the work of the Spirit himself in your life. Spirit-filled life is one that shares the attributes of the Spirit himself & is directed by the Spirit himself

Paul’s command is strikingly simple: “walk by the Spirit” (Gal 5:16).

Important too is what he doesn’t say. He doesn’t say, “Be a good person and you will stop sinning.” He doesn’t say, “Just get more disciplined and you will stop wanting wrong things.” He doesn’t say, “Try harder and you will become loving.”

Instead, he points you to a Person. The person of God the Spirit.

This matters because many of you are high-capacity, high-achievement people. If you’re in this room right now, you have made many accomplishments in your life already. You are no stranger to the grind. You’ve learned how to focus. You know how to get it done (and lock in!). Those qualities are gifts. Those are part of what make you capable of serving in such a demanding profession.

But those gifts can also fool you. They can teach you a subtle falsehood: the lie that if you can do hard things academically, you can also run your Christian life by sheer force.

But Paul insists that the Christian life is lived by the Spirit.

As a contrast, Paul also describes what it means to walk by “the flesh.” When Paul says “flesh,” he’s not talking about the physical body as if the body is bad. He’s talking about fallen human nature, the self turned inward on itself; the me-first instinct that resists God.

And if you want to see the flesh in a pharmacy student’s world, you don’t need a microscope and a full research team, do you?

You can detect the symptoms of someone walking by the flesh in your own life as well: You might see it in comparison; in envy; What about the quiet pride that feels pleasure when someone else stumbles? What about the insecurity that makes you panic when you’re not the best in an exam or in a competitive situation? You can see it in impatience with people in your orbit who slow you down.

One of the times your worldview really starts to show is when you’ve grown weary in a particular task. In this very place, Paul gives us hope. The Spirit is not just a theological concept. The Spirit is the living God at work in you for God’s glory and your good. The Spirit shapes and empowers you for a new kind of life.

So, the integration of your faith and your vocation begins here. If you try to integrate faith with your profession, with pharmacy, all the while living on spiritual fumes, you’ll end up with a Christian label attached to a life that actually runs on anxiety, pride, or fear. But if you learn to walk by the Spirit, you will find that God is shaping you into someone who is both competent in their field and confident in their faith.

I like the metaphor of fruit: Fruit is living. It’s visible. It takes time to grow into fruition. It’s not manufactured by taping apples to a dead tree. We can’t treat the Spirit as a productivity hack that optimizes our relationships. A person who walks in the Spirit must be nourished by the fruit of the Spirit and be comfortable with slow growth.

Notice too that these attributes are ones that are configured toward your interactions with others. The fruit of the Spirit is not mainly for your private quiet time. Rather, it’s for the people in your path.

Love might show up in how you treat the person who irritates you. Patience might show up when a conversation takes longer than you want. Kindness might up when the person in front of you is not nearly as impressive as you are but still needs your help. Self-control might show up when you want to snap back.

What’s more, the ripeness of your spiritual fruit is often tested in some pretty boring places. A group project; a research committee; a lab partner relationship; a repeated interaction with a colleague. It shows up in your tone when you disagree; in your disposition when you respond to stress.

That matters for you now, in your friendships, in your cohort, and in your local church. It also matters because the habits that you build in your training will become the instincts you carry into practice. For example, if your instinct is to protect your image, you might be tempted to hide mistakes. If your instinct is to crush people with words, you could create tension in your team and damage your reputation. If your instinct is to isolate, you will likely burn out faster.

So as a person, one part of integration is letting the Spirit form you into someone who shares his characteristics and attributes. This passage calls you to live by the Spirit, to bear burdens, to restore gently, and to sow seeds that will grow into maturity.

As a Professional: Your good works are for neighbors who are near

But how does who you are as a person relate to who you are as a professional? How does who you are relate to what you do?

Here in Gal 6:7, Paul gives a sober warning: “Do not be deceived.”

Now why would Paul introduce his exhortation like this? I think it’s because we are easily deceived. Our hearts are prone to wander. Like a patient that insists that their bad habits have nothing to do with their recurring preventable ailments.

The warning is followed by a reminder: You are always sowing something.

Paul paints a word picture drawn from the world of agriculture: sowing and reaping. The basic idea is simple and straightforward. Your life is a field. Your daily choices are seeds. Over time, you harvest what you have been planting.

We live in a culture that overestimates what can happen in two years and underestimates what can happen in twenty. Even on a smaller scale, we overestimate what we can do in two weeks and underestimate the effect we can have in two months. We want visible transformation on a short timeline. We want a breakthrough with a dramatic leap rather than slow but steady growth that involves daily steps.

Sowing and reaping assumes time. It assumes patience. It assumes repetition. Think of how absurd it would be if a farmer planted a seed on Monday and and then went to dig it up on Friday to check for progress. Poor guy wouldn’t be a farmer very long. Yet that’s often how we approach growth in our spiritual lives and in our professional formation.

Your life is not shaped mainly by your biggest moments. I think it’s most shaped by your repeated ones.

Every time you choose honesty over image management, you are sowing something. Every time you prepare carefully when no one is watching, you are sowing something. Every time you respond to stress with self-control instead of sharpness, you are sowing something. You may not see the harvest this semester. You may not see it in your first year of practice. But over time, seeds become roots. Roots stabilize you. And that stability allows you to bear fruit.

One author has said that faithfulness can be defined as “long obedience in the same direction.” There is a kind of compound effect to ordinary faithfulness. Small acts of integrity rarely feel impressive. They often feel quite mundane or even trivial (like, how could this matter?!). But these small acts accumulate.

Character is not usually manufactured in a moment of crisis. It’s most often revealed there. At the moment of crisis or interaction, your character is put into action not called into being! Whatever comes out in these moments is whatever is already there.

My favorite example of this is Bamboo plants. For years, certain species appear to show almost no growth at all above the soil. If you didn’t know any better, you might assume that nothing is happening. But underground, a root system is spreading and strengthening. Then, in a short window of time, it shoots up dramatically. To the outside observer, it looks like sudden growth. But it’s not really sudden growth, it’s stored growth. It’s the visible result of an invisible season of preparation.

In the same way, the steady choices you make now are laying down roots. The habit of careful attention. The reflex of gentleness. The discipline of follow-through. The refusal to cut corners. These feel small. But they’re not small. They are forming a root system that will either enhance or hinder your spiritual and professional development.

This should both sober and steady you. It should sober you, because the seeds you plant now will shape the kind of professional and the kind of person you become. But it can also steady you, because faithfulness over time is powerful, even when it feels unimpressive.

What you do today matters. It all matters. And this will always be the case.

So, Paul’s teaching about who we are in Christ and by the Spirit is a reminder that we have both the means and motivation to serve others (as a person and as a professional).

How can you use your career as an opportunity to love your neighbor?

Paul says, “as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone” (Gal 6:10).

This applies to us in our personal lives but it also has a direct connection to your professional life. I think the field of pharmacy is a constant opportunity for tangible good.

In this way, your entire workday is an opportunity. What are you able to do? You can reduce harm and promote safety for someone who needs guidance; help someone understand what’s at stake with a particular medication; protect people from preventable mistakes; to help someone navigate a confusing system without treating them like a nuisance; to treat someone with dignity when they feel ashamed or belittled by their condition or their behavior.

As a believer, you know where your strength in difficult situations comes from. When you counsel a patient, you’re not just transferring information. You’re serving a neighbor. When you double-check something carefully, you are not just being meticulous. You are loving a neighbor by maintaining best practices. When you refuse to treat an annoying person as an interruption (when your patients test your patience), you’re not just being polite. You’re treating them as a fellow creature made in God’s image.

These kinds of opportunities are ongoing and everywhere, and I think that Paul’s reminder is for us not to miss them! These kinds of opportunities are also important to consider as you serve in underrepresented or neglected communities. These are tasks that require your soul to have been nourished beforehand by the fruit of the Spirit. This helps you see that every patient you encounter is an image bearer, whether they know it or not. By the strength of the Spirit, you can see the person standing in front of you as your neighbor.

As believers, good works do not save us. But, because we ourselves have been redeemed, we are set free to work on behalf of others. As Martin Luther noted, “God doesn’t need your good works, but your neighbor does.”

Paul also says, “Bear one another’s burdens” (Gal 6:2).

In your training and in your career, you are in a position to see many people with many burdens. The unnerving thing is that most of these burdens cannot be removed by you or the service that you provide.

You’ll encounter chronic illness that doesn’t go away; mental health struggles that do not resolve quickly; addiction, relapse, and heartbreak; You’ll see foolish choices in young people and abiding loneliness in the elderly. You’ll encounter people who feel trapped in their own lives.

How do you continue to bear one another’s burdens when so much of life weighs yourself down? Though you can’t remove someone’s burdens, you can help them lighten the load where you can. You can also refuse to add to the weight that they are carrying.

What might this look like at the pharmacy counter? Sometimes it might look like a long conversation; or a calm explanation; maybe you help problem-solve a situation where the answer is obvious to you but not them; Maybe it’s telling the truth when someone is asking for an easy lie; As a believer, maybe it looks like praying for a person as they approach or after they leave.

Paul’s concluding exhortation is a good one to leave with: “Don’t grow weary in doing good.”

We need this encouragement because this task is not for the faint at heart!

It can drain you of every ounce of energy at the end of the day. Sometimes those you serve will recognize the love that you show in these ordinary actions. Every once and a while, someone will value your effort. Many times, though, your advocacy and service will be thankless.

If what Paul says in this letter is true, then even your unseen and uncelebrated effort on behalf of others is genuinely seen and valued by the God who called you to it in the first place.

Your Christian Worldview provides the means and motivation for you to serve others as a person and as a professional.

I’ll conclude our time today with this: As a pharmacist, you have an outsized ability to influence the mental state of a person usually in need and often in pain.

In your training now and in your practice, you can strive to be someone who is clearly competent but also genuinely gentle. These qualities form the core of servant leadership.

This is the kind of personal dynamic that will influence your colleagues, that will serve your patients, and that will give you the satisfaction of fulfilling your calling.

May the Lord himself grant us what he himself has demanded of us!