Harvest Hands

"The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Pray for harvest hands."

The Bible study this morning sparked thoughtful dialog from Matthew's gospel. It's the passage that includes a reference to Jesus' compassion for the crowds—all of them confused and aimless, like sheep with no shepherd. His directive: to pray for harvest hands. This prayer yields the twelve apostles, and he sends them out to preach and heal and become the desperately needed shepherds.

We talked about compassion… and how easy it is to get busy with the doing and forget the part about doing it with LOVE. We talked about commitment… and how easy it is to get immersed in ourselves and what we want and forget the part about doing what God wants. We talked about the imperfections of those twelve apostles and our own imperfections… that God doesn't expect us to be holy before we do the work, that wounded people can heal their neighbors with as much success as doctors with degrees. Ordinary normal broken people are enlisted to do God's work. But the choice to respond is always ours. I forget that. I forget I chose this life for a reason.

Maybe some people can make a choice without second thought, without looking back. I'm apparently not one of them. It takes a Bible study conversation to lasso me back to the choicepoint. Oh yeah, I remember now.