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 heard their help wanted plea, so I took the job. They needed help—and I needed more money.

Picking watermelons was one task I’d never undertaken. I had recently moved to a farming community where one of my fellow church members grew watermelons commercially. The owner 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 one-hundred-degree temperatures in fields clothed with stagnant air. I also didn’t know I’d have to work bent over, rising only to toss 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 were unbelievers. They had never heard of Jesus—which was 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 they need the help, nevertheless. While we have more means to preach the gospel message now than ever, the need to tell it is just as critical as 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. But they went, nevertheless. We should do the same.

Have you answered God’s help wanted ad? How can you share this ad with others?

Father, open my eyes to the harvest around me. Then give me the courage to go.

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Go Willingly - Martin Wiles

He was led like a sheep to the slaughter. And as a lamb is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth. Acts 8:32 NLT

She went, but not willingly.

My grandfather—Pappy I called him—was a hog farmer. I remember a lonely shed in one of the hog pens. Here, my grandfather herded the hogs he planned to take to market. I recall one large sow whom he corralled in the shed. Pappy backed his truck up to the shed and then poked the sow so she’d run into the truck. No such luck—at least not right away. She didn’t want to go.

Hogs are solid and often weigh more than their appearance reveals. This one did. I watched with excitement as she moved from one side of the shed to the other, rearing up on her hind legs, and beating against the board and tin sides. By the time my grandfather got her in the truck, she had almost destroyed the shed.

Persecution scattered the early church. Philip found himself on a desert road talking to a treasurer of Ethiopia. He was reading the above scripture from the prophet Isaiah, but had no idea what it meant. Until Philip explained it. Isaiah’s words were a prophecy of the coming Messiah and how He would willingly go to His destination—like a lamb before its shearers.

The cross was the Father’s will for Jesus. Though He struggled with His destiny in the Garden of Gethsemane prior to His arrest and crucifixion, Jesus went willingly where the Father wanted Him to. He had come to pay for the sins of humanity. He went out of love, wanting to restore the relationship between Himself and those who fought to go another direction—like the sow.

Peter didn’t immediately understand Jesus’ destiny. When they came to arrest Jesus, Peter pulled a sword and cut off one of the soldier’s ears. Jesus healed it and continued on willingly to His calling.

I’m often more like the sow: uncomfortable with what God calls me to do. I rear up and beat against the familiar, not wanting to let go of it for something unknown. Sometimes it takes coming to the point of exhaustion before I say, “Here I am, Lord, send me.”

But in the obedience comes the blessing—as it did with Jesus’ crucifixion. Obedience always takes me to God’s best. Fighting prolongs the best—or erases it altogether.

Don’t miss God’s best for you. Go willingly where He leads you.

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Prayer: Father, give us a willing spirit so we’ll go where You lead. 

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