Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.”
Matthew 9:37-38 (ESV)
Do you ever get that feeling that there just aren’t enough hours in the day? I know that I do. As Head of History in a busy school, I have lessons to plan and teach, marking to do, schemes of work to write, lessons to observe, meetings to arrange, emails to reply to and lots more! The only way I find to get through the day to day tasks, and yet still keep my head above water is to delegate. I have four people in my department, and they often find themselves taking on projects for me – things that I would like to implement, but simply don’t have time to myself. Do you remember Record Breakers, with the late, great, Roy Castle? He used to end every show with the phrase, “dedication’s what you need, if you want to be a record breaker.” I’ve corrupted this phrase to, “delegation’s what you need, if you want to be a record breaker!”
Jesus seemed to have similar thoughts. He had reached a point in his ministry where his reputation preceded him. He was followed everywhere by crowds of people, all of whom wanted to hear him teach and wanted healing for themselves and their friends and family. Jesus was beginning to realize that he simply could not do everything himself. He therefore instructed his disciples to pray to God for more people to send out to preach the good news.
There are still many millions of people around the world who need to be told about Jesus and his love for us. There are still not enough people to carry out this task completely. Will you join Jesus in praying for more people to spread the gospel?
Shortly after Jesus asked the disciples to pray for more workers, he sent them out to preach, thereby making them the answer to their own prayer. Will you be the answer to this prayer too? Will you seize every opportunity to tell your friends and family the gospel of Christ?
