July 3, 2022 4th Sunday After Pentecost

Luke 10:1-20  (The Message)

10:1-2 Later the Master selected seventy and sent them ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he intended to go. He gave them this charge:

“What a huge harvest! And how few the harvest hands. So on your knees; ask the God of the Harvest to send harvest hands.

3 “On your way! But be careful—this is hazardous work. You’re like lambs in a wolf pack.

There is no question about the need; the harvest is plentiful.  

There is no question about the importance of prayer as a part of the task. 

The question is, who are the laborers we are praying might be sent out?

Praying was never meant to be a substitute for doing.  It is “me” who is to “go”!  To pray for the harvest is to pray that I might be one of the laborers sent out to struggle in the heart of the day with the task of reaping the harvest.  There is something God cannot do with out my doing it.  God has chosen to limit God’s activity to those humans who will do it for Him/Her.

 

Indeed, this is a dangerous prayer for we might be caught up in the answer. 

“This God gives the skill           

But not without men’s hands;

He could not make Antonio 

Stradivarius violins

Without Antonio.”

George Eliot in “Stradivarius”

Prayer thought for the week: “Lord, use me in your harvest.  Open my eyes to see how I might “be there” for You each day.”