Read Luke 10:1-12

One of my best friends in high school lived on an apple orchard. We had picnics there in the summer. At the time of harvest, they would take ladders to trees and start work early so they could pick their fruit to sell and make applesauce. I always knew I was welcome in that orchard.

But I would not have been so bold as to picnic or even to wander around that apple orchard, if I didn’t know the people who owned it. Especially at harvest time, I wouldn’t have dared step foot into that orchard because it didn’t belong to me.

When Jesus sent 72 of His followers out to all the places and towns He was about to go, He made sure they knew whose work they were bidding, whose land they were preparing.

“The harvest is plentiful,” He said, “but the workers are few.” (v.2)

Then He likened the places they were about to go to a field that was ripe for the harvest. A field that belonged to the Lord Himself.

“Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” (v.2)

It was His harvest, His field, and they were His workers appointed to do His work. In every one of these words Jesus spoke, He never once led His disciples to believe that any part of that field belonged to them. He never even suggested that any one of them had made the harvest what it was – plentiful and ready. It was all His.

In fact, Jesus is the only one who took action in these first two verses. Jesus appointed. Jesus sent. Jesus told. The only action demanded of the workers? Ask.

The harvest field still belongs to Him. This world, this county, this town, this neighborhood. It’s His for the harvest. That’s why we are to ask Him. Our job starts with the ask. Always. It begins with prayer.

It’s where Jesus began His instructions for those 72 disciples. And it’s where you and I need to begin too. Ask. Pray for workers for the harvest. Pray for your friends whom He loves.

Yes, pray. Ask. Let Jesus take the lead as you go into the ready harvest and tell about the real life He came to give them.

Bria Wasson