23 - The Power Of Silent Work
The silent work (the work no one sees) we do is more valuable than it feels at the time. The silent work is the development that goes on behind the scenes where we are growing roots in the ground. It’s the work of continuing to nourish seeds even when it feels like you planted them long ago and nothing has yet sprung up. It’s the kind of work that makes us question why we aren’t any further than we are.
It feels lackluster. It feels frustrating at times. It feels like we should be through this stage already.
The silent work is also showing up for just one or two people in the beginning of whatever we’re starting.
The silent work is the perseverant work that refuses to accept defeat and yet gets back up again and again.
Silent work isn’t showy. It won’t give you an Instagram highlight reel, but it pays dividends in ways money never could.
If you feel like you’re in a silent season where the work you’re doing feels hidden and the results haven’t come yet, dig into the deepest trenches of perseverance and keep putting one foot in front of the other. Pray. Work the plan. Persevere. Cultivate hope. Worship.
Silent work and silent season do eventually bloom forth into a harvest.
We can’t predict when things will shift, but they will in time. You may feel like you’ve waited decades for your answer to prayer or for what you’ve worked for to take off.
As my favorite quote below reflects, what better legacy than being willing to get in the ring of life and do the best with what you’ve been given, regardless of whether it pans out or not in the way you had hoped.
There may be things on this side of heaven you never see come to fruition, but your work still counts and matters. Those who come after you will stand on your shoulders, on the ground you’ve broken and cultivated in the span of history you were given to live.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
Theodore Roosevelt