This morning as I wake up and prepare for the day, I am easily overwhelmed at my list of to-do’s! Today contains: a workout at the gym, mowing the yard along with fall yard clean-up, making a meal for my husbands’ grandpa, writing this Bible Journal Post, picking up the house for the weekend, attending the high school football game to watch my daughter cheer, and anything else that may pop up. I am totally focused on what I have to do and accomplish. But this is NOT the work that Jesus calls me to do! All the things on my list today are good and may serve others, but the focus is not on God.
God tells us in our reading today, Luke 10, that our focus should be PRAYER.
And he said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” Luke 10:2 (ESV)
We have to shift our focus from our daily work or list of to-do’s and focus on PRAYER. It is hard to do, because prayer is not busy work, it does not seem to help us accomplish much in the immediate. But, this is the issue, we focus on our immediate presence and what is before us. We focus on what we have to accomplish today, right now. And all this time, God is asking us to pray for workers – not be the worker.
There is so much work to be done. When we step out of our homes we are faced with the tragedy and crisis all around us. It is easy to think, “How can I help fix this, or what can I do to help show love to a neighbor in need?”. We can easily stay busy meeting the needs of all those around us, and this is good work. We are called to love and serve our neighbors. But Luke 10:2 first calls us to PRAY!
In this chapter, Jesus is preparing 72 disciples to go out and reach the people. These 72 are not to do the job of reaching others all by themselves, but they are to PRAY for more workers. They are to begin by gathering more people to PRAY. To PRAY that other people will join them in reaching out.
I know that I spend so much more time on my to-do’s then I do in prayer. What is your focus today? God calls us to pray for more workers to bring the good news to our neighbors. Will you pray for this today??