me and my 45 squad mates when we embark on a year-long journey to bring the gospel to the uttermost. One night after I’d come
home from training camp with these beautiful people, I looked up and noticed
the HUGE yellow moon. A harvest moon. And I remembered a fellow squad mate’s
exhortation that our race didn’t start in January…it begins now. We find the
same challenge in John 4:35.
“Do you not say, ‘There are
yet four months, and then comes the harvest’? BEHOLD, I say to you, lift up
your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest.”
JOHN 4:35 NASB
So often we have something we’re looking forward to. We wait
for a starting point. Maybe it’s a resolution that will come with the new year.
Maybe it’s something we feel led to pursue. But we wait for the “right time”.
So often I’ve used that as an excuse to bide my time, because truly, I’m scared.
In his book Forgotten God,
Francis Chan says, “It’s easy to use the phrase ‘God’s will for my life’ as an
excuse for inaction or even disobedience. It’s much less demanding to think
about God’s will for your future than to ask him what he wants you to do in the
next ten minutes. It’s safer to commit to following him someday instead of this
day.”
2 Corinthians 6:2 compels us further:
” ‘In
the time of my favor I heard you, and
in the day of salvation I helped you.’[a] I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day
of salvation.”
There are
co-workers, fellow Starbucks frequenters, friends, family, etc. that are ripe
for harvest today. They have called out. Now will you go? Will you be bolder
than a Pike Place roast and look for opportunities to share your heart or listen
to theirs? Whether you’ve been stifled by fear, ignorance or feelings of
insufficiency, today is the day, friends! May you find the courage to put those
things aside and move out into the work before you. You have just the tools
someone needs.
