the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few...

each week we have to pick a passage out of out assigned new testament reading and do a sort of reflection on it... here is a glimpse at one of the things i have been wrestling with...

Matthew 9:37-38
Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

Something stuck out to me the first week, when Martin was speaking; he said something along the lines of “how do you suppose you can go far off somewhere and be a pastor, or a missionary and spread the good news when you cant even talk to your neighbor?” This has really spoken to me, because the last few years, I have felt inadequate or unprepared for ministry, and then I got thrown into the ministry where I realized that I COULDN’T DO IT…alone, but Christ through me... I am never going to reach a certain level of knowledge or wisdom where I feel like, ok; now I’m ready to serve God, because I am always learning and growing… and still feel like I know nothing. I thought that I had to go to bible school or something first, get my “training” and then I would be ready… God can’t use me until then… “the things we think disqualify us from ministry, qualify us…” Rob said that this week, and it took until the end of the week, for me to realize what that meant for me. I have often felt incompetent to preach, or bring Gods word to people (my disqualification). That is exactly what qualifies me, because it shouldn’t be me, but God through me. All the time I have tried to do it on my own, it wasn’t in the spirit; but when I surrendered, it was amazing how God used me.

So how does this passage apply to me? It is true that we need senders and we need goers. What I mean is even the 12 relied on people to put them up for the night, and put food in their stomachs when the decided to leave everything and follow Him. However, while many take this task seriously, and do so as an act of worship, there are majorities who use this as the easy way to not have to “deny themselves and take up the cross daily.” The Harvest is SO MANY… and the workers… are few… I can see God using me in so many ways, in my hometown or across the globe. I feel that few people feel that tug, or the desire in their hearts. “He will give you the desires of your heart,” and when you are walking in his spirit those desires are not of your own, but put there by him. So I feel if it is there then, that is something that you need to act on. God opens and closes doors, and he puts us through seasons. I see the need out there, and I also see the need right next door… We need only walk through the doors he opens for us, and keep on going until he closes it or opens another…