Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. – James 5:7

The first thing that a farmer does by way of seeking gain on his farm is to make a sacrifice which could seem immediately to entail on him a loss. He has some good wheat in the granary, and he takes out sacks full of it, and buries it; he is so much the poorer, is he not? At any rate, there is so much the less to make bread for his household. He cannot get it again; it is under the clods, and there it must die, for unless it dies, it brings not forth fruit! You must not expect, as soon as you become a Christian, that you shall obtain all the gains of your religion. Perhaps you may lose all that you have for Christ’s sake; some have lost their lives; they have sown their house and land, relatives, comfort, ease, and at last they have sown life itself in Christ’s field, and they seemed, for the time, to be losers. But verily I say unto you this day, if you could see them in their white robes before the throne of God, rejoicing, you would see how rich a harvest they have reaped, and how the sowing which seemed a loss at first has ended, through God’s abundant grace, in the greatest eternal gain! Have patience, brothers and sisters, have patience! That is a false religion that aims at present worldly advantages; he who becomes religious for the loaves and fishes, when he has eaten his loaves and fishes, has devoured his religion! There is nothing in such piety but pretension; if you can be bought, you can be sold; if you have taken it up for gain, you will lay it down for what promises you a better bargain! Be willing to be a loser for Christ, and so prove you are His genuine follower!

“I am to wait,” says a sufferer, “for God’s help, and for the graces that come by affliction. But I must wait with my eyes upward, for all the plowing of affliction will not profit me, and all the sowing of meditation will not speed me unless God sends His gracious Spirit like showers of heavenly rain. If I am a worker, I must work; when I wait, I must wait always looking upward.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1025.cfm