Long before Christ said, “Go,” He said, “Pray.” We all know the Great Commission by heart, but does our heart know this prayer?
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 9:37-38
I can remember tasting the lonely reality of few workers for the harvest in my years overseas. There we were, just seven of us, working to reach more than 100,000 and those all scattered among villages tucked (and not mapped) among the mountains of two counties. And even though we’d answered the call to ‘go,’ even there in the field, it often felt like all we could do there was pray-pray for more workers.
And now, here I sit, here in Nashville-”the city of churches”, still knowing there are hundreds of millions who’ve never seen, not even heard of a church. And worse, never heard of the church’s head-the suffering and resurrected Christ. I sit here and wonder how to ‘go’ these days, these days I’m here with my children and my laundry and my dirty kitchen.
Running into this command from Christ runs my thoughts back to those cold days the few of us spent wandering the mountains of Asia, searching for the plentiful harvest. Thinking of those sweet children running, those women staring and those men working under such a heavy load, I can’t deny His call to ‘go’ but perhaps I should first respond to His call to ‘pray.’
Who can imagine what He might do if we allowed ourselves to feel the compassion of Christ and to spend more of our moments praying that He would send more workers into the harvest field?
I walk the farmer’s market, wondering if this is the last of this year’s harvest. I come home to baskets of peaches and bags of cucumbers and wonder at the fruit that Christ can see-just waiting to be picked. And I pray, Lord, send your people, send workers to the harvest that lasts forever.
Need some help praying for more workers? (I do!) Check out some of these sites and ask for more grace to pray that the Lord of the harvest would send workers to these people and places.
Joshua Project-this site is full of up to date information on the unreached peoples and their current status. You can sign up for a daily email that informs you of one unreached people group each day.
Operation World-I’ve linked to this site before. We really enjoy the daily prayer videos for each country on this site.
What would North America Be Like If…?-go here to see how many workers would be in the US and Canada if it were like North Africa
Interactive World Map -explore this link with kids or by yourself to connect people with where God’s placed them on the planet
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