On Your Knees...

I love this. It's easy to let pretty much anything morph into everything it isn't supposed to be. And in ministry we too commonly dismiss it on the grounds that we are "furthering the kingdom" and "doing the Lord's work" and blah, blah. Don't get me wrong, the work is important...I don't think for one second God just wants us to sit on our butts and wait for the show to start, but what are we counting on? I know my efforts aren't going to cut it...God has got to be in control, I've got to let Him use me! Who knows what that may look like...it could be a hundred times different than anything I imaged, but what I do know is that if I'm not talking to Him and listening to Him and seeking and searching for where it is He wants me, then...what's the point, really? Besides, I think it's a pretty sweet deal that I CAN talk to and hear from my father in heaven...talk to and hear from the creator of EVERYTHING! When I see it like that, I wonder why I don't pray more often...

Pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest

-Matthew 9:38

The Key to the Master’s Orders - Oswald Chambers The key to the missionary’s difficult task is in the hand of God, and that key is prayer, not work— that is, not work as the word is commonly used today, which often results in the shifting of our focus away from God. The key to the missionary’s difficult task is also not the key of common sense, nor is it the key of medicine, civilization, education, or even evangelization. The key is in following the Master’s orders— the key is prayer. "Pray the Lord of the harvest . . . ." In the natural realm, prayer is not practical but absurd. We have to realize that prayer is foolish from the commonsense point of view. From Jesus Christ’s perspective, there are no nations, but only the world. How many of us pray without regard to the persons, but with regard to only one Person— Jesus Christ? He owns the harvest that is produced through distress and through conviction of sin. This is the harvest for which we have to pray that laborers be sent out to reap. We stay busy at work, while people all around us are ripe and ready to be harvested; we do not reap even one of them, but simply waste our Lord’s time in over-energized activities and programs. Suppose a crisis were to come into your father’s or your brother’s life— are you there as a laborer to reap the harvest for Jesus Christ? Is your response, "Oh, but I have a special work to do!" No Christian has a special work to do. A Christian is called to be Jesus Christ’s own, "a servant [who] is not greater than his master" (John 13:16), and someone who does not dictate to Jesus Christ what he intends to do. Our Lord calls us to no special work— He calls us to Himself. "Pray the Lord of the harvest," and He will engineer your circumstances to send you out as His laborer.