But when He saw the multitudes He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.”
Matthew 9:36-37
Today I helped to harvest a bean field and sow the seeds of the gospel. It was one of my favorite days here because I really felt God at work. It made me excited yet sad as our time at the farm is ending in just a few days.
If you haven’t ever harvested beans, let me tell you that it’s hard work. We were able to do it a week and a half ago but today we worked for a much longer amount of time. Now harvesting a bean field may not sound that exciting to you but it was an experience that I’m very grateful for. Not only is it a good work out for the arms and legs but more importantly I felt I came to a better understanding of the scriptures that talk about harvesting.
We starting helping with the harvest this morning at 7:15 and during that time of just silently picking the beans plants out of the ground I just kept praying and God was showing me so much about who he is while I was working. The phrase “Lord of the Harvest” from Matthew kept running through my head. So many analogies came to my mind as I had to look for the bean plants so I wouldn’t waste my time plucking the weeds from the soil. The Lord reminded me of that being how it is when we know him that some day he will come back and He knows who belongs to him and who doesn’t just as it was easy to be able to tell the difference between the bean plants and weeds. Also the other thing I was thinking about was how important it is to harvest the beans when they need to be harvested and how only God knows the time He will come back and harvest us but in the mean time we have been asked to help with the harvest by planting the seeds of the gospel and harvesting the souls that are ready. In John 4:35 Jesus says, “Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields , for they are already white for harvest!” These verses have made me excited to go out and gather souls and tell people about Jesus. I hope that you to can be passionate about harvesting and helping the people to grow who are around you now.
After helping to harvest the bean fields we gathered everyone who lives at the farm together and served them lunch and shared the gospel through Chris sharing his testimony. I’ll talk more about this in my next blog. It was great to be able to do this for the people as they have been so hospitable to us these last 2 weeks and we were glad to be able to share why we are here and plant more seeds that hopefully grow in the months and years to come! Please pray that our last day (Wednesday) goes well and that we will get the opportunity to talk to anyone that we haven’t yet had the chance.
