Howdy, all and welcome to my first blog post!
I’d like to take just a minute to share with you how I got to this point. How does a young, teenage girl go from living comfortably to suddenly yearning to be planted on foreign land and see souls from every nation, tribe, and tongue surrendered to Jesus?
Nearly seven years ago, I was confronted with my sin, and began a transformative relationship with Jesus Christ. Within those seven years, I have heard lots of scripture, read lots of scripture, seen lots of scripture, you get the gist. Yet, in all these years of being familiar with the living and active word of God, it’s as if there’s a new truth, (new to me), to be unveiled and extracted every morning. There’s one specific passage out of Matthew 9 that I’ve heard preached and taught many times, and still, when I read it today, I see myself in that passage. I see you, dear friend, in that passage. I see the heart of God in that passage. Starting in verse 35, it reads:
“Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.
36Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then He said to His disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. 38 Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.’ “
Being the Bethelite that I am, (*shameless plug* Bethel Seminary is a fantastic place to learn about Scripture, while cultivating your gifts and developing a passion for ministry and Biblical literacy), I looked into the word “harvest” and “worker” both in verse 38. What I found was that “His harvest”, is a figurative phrase to simply depict, ” a multitude of men to be taught how to obtain salvation,” (according to Thayer’s Lexicon). The word “workers” is more directly, “laborers” or “husbandman”, both in an agricultural sense. What I came to learn from these discoveries is that oftentimes, when we hear this passage preached, it’s used to encourage and push men and women into a life on mission. This is a perspective of seeing their job, their school, their state, their nation, and all other nations as fields of ready souls, waiting for someone to share the gospel with them. While, that is good and necessary and true, it is not always the whole story.
What we don’t often discuss in this passage is the nature of cultivation. A Laborer is not just a cool word that we can write in calligraphy in our journals. The base word is “labor”, for a reason. Working out in the Harvest isn’t always easy. It isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always what we expect it to be. I’m no farmer, but I’m certain that harvesting is actually pretty uncomfortable. Imagine this with me for a moment. It’s harvest time, (pre-modern day farm equipment), you’re out in the sun pulling crops, removing each seeding by hand, sweating, etc. I can’t speak for you, but that’s not exactly what I have in mind when I think of comfort.
It wasn’t until I read and processed this seemingly apparent truth that I became comfortable in the uncomfortable. I know what you’re thinking, “lol this girl doesn’t make any sense” and sometimes, I’m right there with ya. The point is, “life on mission”, doesn’t come with the promise of comfort all the time, or all the right things to go all the right ways all the time. Life on mission is learning to trust God when you don’t think you can walk another step, harvest another plant, or bear the heat of the blazing sun any longer.
Friends, this is our moment. This is where we get to partner with the Son of God and take on His heart for the lost, for the harvest, for the PLENTY who don’t have the eternal hope, joy, and power of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. Earlier, I said that I see myself in this passage. I have chosen to take ownership of the identity I have in Christ, a laborer. I can see you in this passage. Maybe you are standing at the door of decision today and you would say that yes, you know the Lord, but the idea of being a “worker” sounds like a great commitment, and you would be right. Before you dismiss the idea all together, I want you to hear me out. Pray that the Lord would give you His heart for the lost, pray that you would see and love those souls the way He does, pray that above all, He would be glorified in your life.
So, how did I get here? I prayed that prayer. I longed to bring glory to God, anywhere, everywhere. The beauty of it all is, I’m STILL learning. It is daunting to step onto the field and see the many, many souls in need of the Savior. Be that as it may, the Lord is actively sending out laborers to go. Oh, that the church would be compelled and moved to compassion the way Jesus was that day in the villages! How different might the state of our world be if we ALL acted urgently and strategically to forward the advancement of God’s kingdom!
From Beeville, Texas to College Station, Texas to Cusco, Peru to the ends of the earth, this Laborer will go. Will you?
