Tend to the Harvest

The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest field.

-Matthew 9:37-38

 

            There I go again, trying to plant, plow, water and reap my own fields, only to find them trampled by my fumbling hands.

            You say the work is plenty, the fruits are ripe, yet who will pluck the precious pieces from their vine? Wheat, golden in the yellow sun, waves in an autumn wind, full and soft and ready to fall apart at a touch. See how they glisten? See how they arch in the afternoon air, beckoning, helpless on their own? How they plead for perfection upon their stalks.

            You are the planter. You raise the soil and set each seed in their place among the earth. You gently prod each miracle inside to shape and stir beneath Your touch, and day after week after month You watch and wait for fruit to bear. You, with Your tender care, see the sweet growth and prepare its color and taste.

            I am a feeble servant, stretched on my hand and knees to collect the remnants left in Your wake. Where the dirt meets the drops of harvest, there you’ll find my soiled hands. How can I breathe Your bounty when my lungs are filled with dust?

            Come, You say to me. The time is right and the fields are full for plucking. Tend to Your gardens with the grace and mercy You first planted. Much work is still to be done, and You have designed a specific purpose for my path.

            My heart is eager yet my steps are slow. I fear to trod upon the handiwork of Your green thumb, afraid to till and sift and shake. But You have bundled together those that most fit my fertility, have already given me the strength to stay Your course. Under a waning sky I will take my chaff and store the best for You. I will grow and sow and toil and water, so when the time comes to pluck up Your treasures, so smoothed and shaped they will slide like raindrops off a summer flower and flow straight into eternity’s basket.

 

Prayer:

The harvest is plenty, but the workers are few. How I long to be counted as one who tends Your fields! Give me a planter’s heart and a soul to sow, that I may pick the vines that You have grown so ripe and full. Thank You for allowing me to do Your work. Amen.