You shall not labor in vain... 

     In 1806 Noah Webster (1758-1843) published his first dictionary. He called it A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language. It contained brief definitions of about 37,000 words. Twenty-two years later, in 1828, he published his two volume American Dictionary of the English Language containing 70,000 words. Sales of the dictionary were very poor. The twenty years of labor he spent on it seemed to go unappreciated. His endeavor nearly bankrupt him and became the greatest disappointment of his life. In 1843, after Noah's death, the G. & C. Merriam Company (renamed Merriam-Webster Inc. in 1982) secured the rights to create and publish revised editions of his dictionary. It was the beginning of what became known as the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.
     Perhaps you, like Noah Webster, have performed a task only to feel unappreciated by the very ones for whom you sought to assist. If so, "be not weary in well doing: for in due season you shall reap, if you faint not" (Gal 6:9). "Your labor is not in vain in the Lord" (1Cor 15:58).