Help Wanted - Martin Wiles

The harvest is so great, but the workers are so few. Pray to the Lord…and ask him to send out more workers for his fields. Luke 10:2 NLT

I took the job because they needed help and I wanted more money.

Picking watermelons was one task I’d never undertaken. I had recently moved to a community where one of my fellow church members grew watermelons for commercial sale. The owner of the farm had only one regular employee but hired extra hands during watermelon season. When he asked if I wanted to be one of the extra hands, I agreed. 

Little did I know it would mean sweltering in 100 degree temperatures in fields clothed with stagnant air. I also didn’t know I’d have to work bent over, rising erect only when tossing the melon to the person waiting in the back of the farm truck that meandered down each aisle. After loading a truck, we’d drive back to the farmer’s home where an eighteen wheeler waited. Here, we’d unload what we had just loaded. One summer was all I needed to realize we needed extra help.

The harvest Jesus spoke about wasn’t a nice crop of watermelons. Souls were on his mind. He was sending His disciples out into a world where the majority of the people they would meet would be unbelievers. They’d either never heard of Jesus—which was entirely possible since He’d only been around thirty or so years, or they had chosen to disbelieve He was the Messiah. 

Every church could hang a sign over their doorway reading, “Help Wanted.” Most of the time, pay isn’t involved, but the help is needed nevertheless. While believers have more means at their disposal to preach the gospel message, the need to tell it is just as important as it was in the first century. 

Technology helps us spread the good news faster and more effectively, but the world is still filled with those who need to hear and respond.

The disciples’ earlier decision to follow Jesus indicated their willingness to apply for the “Help Wanted” position. They would encounter opposition, ridicule, unbelief, and persecution. Some would be martyred. They went nevertheless. We should do the same. 

Have you answered the “Help Wanted” ad?

Prayer: Father, open our eyes to the harvest around us. Then give us the courage to go. 

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