harvest workers

In Old Testament Israel, a year when the grain harvest failed and the summer crop (grapes, figs, olives) was unproductive meant a dark winter of famine was coming. A proverb says, "One season of hope after another has passed, but the looked-for deliverance never came, and now all hope is gone."

Thankfully, this was a good year for my garden, but as I began cleaning up the dead plants at the end of the summer, I found several tomatoes that had ripened and then fell to the ground. I had been too tired and too busy to harvest them when they were ready. 

While working in the garden, this verse came to my mind. Often, we think of it as referring to a sinner missing his opportunity to be saved. However, God's people are needed to work the harvest. Luke 10:2 says, "The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few." Could it be that like those ripe tomatoes, some souls were ready for the harvest and only needed a "labourer" to show them the way of salvation? Could it be that busyness, weariness, and the cares of life kept us from working in the "garden," and now "the harvest [opportunity] is past"?

It is easy to think of all the tomatoes that were harvested and count the loss of a few missed tomatoes as no big deal. While that might be true of a literal harvest, God's "labourers" consider every soul to be of great value! "Let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not" (Galatians 6:9).

When we become too consumed with the cares of this life, it is easy to forget we are harvest workers for the Lord.