“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest. – Luke 10:2 ESV
In late summer, just days before school began after Labor Day, our family would load up the family car to make the drive from our Dallas-area home to our grandparents’ farm on the outskirts of Emporia, Kansas.
Once we neared the Oklahoma-Kansas border, we drove through walls of wheat, sorghum, corn, soybeans, and hay. Every now and then, we passed a patch of ground that had already surrendered its crop to a farmer’s John Deere Harvester. The patches were sad, bare little interruptions in the swaying fields of grain.
Those years, when we returned a month and a half later for a big Thanksgiving family gathering, the landscape had undergone an almost frightening makeover.
Gone were the tall golden, long-leaved plants; in their place were dry-looking stumps and stubble. Some of the stubbly hay fields still held bound, fat rectangles of dried hay that had not yet been relocated to their winter homes.
Tractors pulling wagonloads of piled, bound hay often slowed traffic as they pulled onto the highways and moved at a snail’s pace while transporting their harvest from field to barn.
Depending on the quality and quantity of the fall harvest, it was either a time of great celebration and thanksgiving for a bountiful crop or many days of remorse and recrimination, as farmers knew their meager harvests didn’t bode well for the harsh winter to come.
I remember many Thanksgiving table conversations analyzing the successes and failures of my grandparents and their neighbors’ farm crops. None of which interested me, my sisters, or our cousins. We’d beg for dessert, wolf it down, then hurry off to play as far away from the table discussions as possible.
After the worldwide, cleansing waters of the flood (Genesis 7) subsided, Noah and his family were instructed to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth. And God established the seasons and the annual rhythms of planting and harvesting on the annual calendar of humankind from that day until time is no more.
While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” – Genesis 8:22 ESV
So, it is no wonder why the concept of “harvest” crops up throughout Scripture. Harvest is a timeless theme familiar to us all.
A bountiful harvest was usually a sign of God’s blessing. A poor harvest just as often was a sign of judgment and punishment.
A plentiful harvest was a reason for celebration; it was also the source of thanksgiving offerings to God.
Harvest time offered opportunities to trust God’s watchful care over His people when the Jews were prohibited from working the land and harvesting crops, as on the Sabbath day, or the full-year observances of the “Sabbath Year” or “Year of Jubilee.” (Leviticus 25) During those days, the hearts and minds of God’s people were to be focused on God’s goodness and His blessings.
The Old Testament chronicles numerous events, blessings, judgments, and punishments tied to the harvest. Sadly, the latter half of the Old Testament records more judgment and punishment than blessings: harvests were stolen by the enemies of God’s people, destroyed by the locusts, or simply failed to produce.
Jeremiah, God’s prophet, mourned over the rebellious, self-willed Jews determined not to acknowledge God as their LORD and as the One who gives or withholds the blessings of a bountiful harvest:
They do not say in their hearts, ‘Let us fear the LORD our God, who gives the rain in its season, the autumn rain and the spring rain, and keeps for us the weeks appointed for the harvest.’ – Jeremiah 5:24 ESV
“The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.” – Jeremiah 8:20 ESV
It is no surprise that in the New Testament, Jesus used the harvest analogy several times to explain the urgent need to send workers into the fields to gather the harvest.
Then He [Jesus] said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest. – Matthew 9:38 ESV
Jesus urged His disciples and followers to recognize that the harvest is no longer simply a physical gathering of the fruits of the ground. Jesus gave the harvest a spiritual meaning. The harvest that Jesus talked about is a harvest of the hearts of men and women for the Kingdom of God.
Jesus challenged His followers to open their eyes to the spiritual harvest that has no set season for harvesting. He said take your eyes off the physical harvest—look at the spiritual harvest ready and waiting to be gathered. Don’t wait. Gather now.
Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. – John 4:35 ESV
Timing of the harvest is critical. A too-early harvest can mean immature plants, compromised flavor, a reduced yield, and often a short shelf life. A late harvest risks diminished flavors, compromised quality, and plant rot.
Farmers, especially those in the Midwest, know that a late Fall harvest can run into unpredictable weather swings, damaging rains, and freezing cold snaps – none are good for a healthy harvest.
Friend, the spiritual harvest is not time-constrained; it does not wait for seasonal changes.
Spiritual harvest isn’t seasonal; it’s individual and personal.
The harvest of souls has no prescribed seasonal calendar. When God’s Holy Spirit completes His work of conviction and convincing, it’s time for confession and conversion.
We are to live with eyes and ears wide open. Always listening for God’s leading and watching those around us for opportunities to serve and participate in the harvest.
Maybe that friend isn’t quite ready for “harvesting,” but she needs to be nurtured to grow in understanding of her need for Christ. Perhaps she is still in the convicting and convincing stage.
Pray that God’s Holy Spirit will direct you. Are you to pray? Are you to encourage? How are you to serve and participate in the harvest?
Our responsibility is to keep our eyes on the fields that are ready for harvest, prepared and ready to follow God’s leading. We are called to be laborers in His glorious harvest.
And He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” –Luke 10:2 ESV
Are you ready, willing, and able to participate in God’s harvest?