A Kick in the Pants

Then [Jesus] said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

Matt 9.38-39

Platt:

In light of the abundant harvest of people who are separated from God, Jesus beckons us to pray. He says, "Therefore, pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest" (v. 38; emphasis added). Notice that Jesus doesn't say, "Here's the harvest, now go!" Instead, He says, "Here's the harvest, now pray." Jesus will eventually get to the "go" part, but first His followers must be on their knees, asking and pleading with God to send out workers. This is precisely what we should be doing in our churches as we seek to send people out regularly into this dark world to proclaim the gospel. We should actually pray for people to leave . . . on mission! God loves to answer prayers like this. Our churches ought to be sending bases of laborers for the harvest of souls. No one is to be a spectator. 

Many believers don't even consider the possibility that God could call them to proclaim the gospel in another location. Or if they do, they often have a distorted view of what such a call would look like. Jim Elliot, the missionary martyr to the Auca Indians of Peru, lamented the fact that so few were willing to go to the mission field in his own day. He said, "Our young men are going into [other] fields because they don't 'feel called' to the mission field. We don't need a call; we need a kick in the pants" (Elliot, Shadow of the Almighty, 150). As followers of Christ, our lives should be "on the table" before the Lord. Wherever He says to go, we go. None of us is intended simply to coast through life until we get to heaven.