by Matt Loomis
The fields are ripe for the harvest. I’ve heard it. I’ve preached it. Without understanding we all have a responsibility to go into the fields there is the risk of allowing a crop to rot in the field. Once that occurs, it becomes suitable for nothing but the fire. A horrible waste of the commodity of the heavens: people. Unfortunately I often find myself thinking months in advance about… well, things. Things relating to the field, but I can easily forget that the field is ripe now.
Jesus deals with my tendency to plan ahead of Him and my procrastination in one statement. He pointedly says, “Do you not say four more months and then the harvest? I tell you, open your eyes… they are ripe for the harvest!” The harvest is now. I have to remember to stay focused on the harvest: people. People at the store, in the car next to me, in my community. They may not be aware of the times, but Jesus lets us know. It’s time.
Jesus actually said, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work.” Jesus’ sustenance, the thing that kept him going, was doing the work the Father had called him to. Again that work’s focus and purpose is people. I know that there are times, too many I must admit, that His work is hard, long and draining and because of that, all I want to do is sit on the edge of the field. I find myself at times simply ignoring the field, and other times I think if I tell others to get into the field thats good enough.
As pastors and leaders we do have to plan, we do need rest and we definitely need to call attention to missions. But we can never allow those things to remove us from the very field that Jesus died for. My attention, somehow my food, must be on what sustained and propelled my Master: the masses, the individual, the friend, the enemy, the church attender, the loner. People.
