“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.” John 4:34-38 NIV
As our devotional team discussed John’s retelling of this “Sortie into Samaria”, the above part of the story seemed out of place, perhaps because the usual focus is on Jesus’ encounter with the woman at Jacob’s Well. But the woman’s response and subsequent invitation to her fellow villagers brought a throng of inquirers into view.
“.., I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.” John 4:35
Are our eyes open to today’s harvest? Sadly, negative news we consume about what the world around us thinks of Christians makes many of us hesitant to share the Gospel. Also counterproductive is that Christians often speak negatively about other Christians. What else might cause blindness to the fields now ripe for harvest?
A few decades ago, one of our mission partners related a story about an influential woman in rural China who heard about Jesus for the first time. The report of her response still lingers in my mind:
“We’ve been waiting to hear this our whole lives.”
Another decades-old story also surprised me. A woman visiting the then newly established memorial for the victims of the Columbine High School massacre related that she shared the Gospel with several young students also visiting the site. She was astonished they had never before heard the true Jesus story.
Also consider this:
The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.
They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them.
Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. Psalm 19:1-4 NIV
These two accounts and the declaration of Psalm 19 highlight that God constantly – silently, with inaudible words – speaks to and prepares people to hear the good news of His Only Son. Our role as his followers is to engage in harvesting the crop God wants for himself. When to do this? It’s always now. Devising an elaborate and contemporary preparation scheme isn’t necessary.
So, take courage. Do you have stories (short or long) about how Jesus has worked and is working in your life? Pray: Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal people ready to hear one of those stories. And remember two things. First, most people are exposed to several aspects of the Gospel before making a final decision to follow Jesus. Second, our assignment isn’t to convert, but to shine light on him.
by Kathleen Petersen
