Tuesday, April 12
The Harvest
When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore to send out workers into his harvest field.” —Matthew 9:36-38 (NIV Study Bible)
While growing up, I went to a Catholic school until the start of the 6th grade – which meant I went to mass every day except Saturday. Even after I moved to the public schools, most of the school calendars and events were influenced by the Christian faith. As far as I knew, all of my friends and neighbors were Christians and attended church on Sunday. I actually didn’t have a conversation with someone who stated they were not a Christian until I had been working for a couple of years. So when these verses were preached on or discussed in a Bible study, I always thought that they didn’t apply to me since almost all of the folks that I knew were already Christian, and I had no plans on being a missionary.
When Lane mentioned that the Lenten Devotions would be based on “The Long and Winding Road: Following Jesus When the Path is Rough,” I got a light tap on my shoulder but figured I would ignore it and it would go away. Well it didn’t go away. It kept reminding me that during my work career, my family and I relocated to Thailand to work for a few years. Now, Thailand is a great place, it is very “exotic,” the people are very friendly, the food is fantastic and we loved living there. However, one thing that quickly became obvious was that Thailand had very few Christians – less than half a percent of the country.
It was now plain to see that “the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.” We were fortunate enough to be introduced to a couple of missionary families and were able to keep our connection with the Christian faith while in Thailand. One of the missionaries was fond of asking our small community of faith, “did we believe that God was still active in the world today, and if so, we should open our eyes, find out where He was active and go join Him in His work.”
If we fast-forward to now, we find that the number of folks active in their Christian faith continues to decline. Our community is no longer like it was when I was growing up. In the not too distant future, we may find that less than half of the people are active in the Christian faith. So now when I read or hear this Scripture, I have come to better understand that indeed, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore to send out workers into his harvest field.”
Dear Lord, open our eyes to where you are active in the world that we might go and join you in your work so that we too can help with the harvest! We pray these things in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.
grace, john toney