Send the Laborers

This morning I read an email that has caught at my heart and won't let me go.  The email contained a prophetic message from someone whose name I can't remember, but the message I can't forget. 

In the message, the author shares a vision, or was it a dream, that he had been given.  In this vision or dream, there was a field.  The field was filled with a harvest that was ripe and ready for harvesting.  As the man stepped into the field a noise of crying and weeping could be heard.  It was the harvest.  It was crying out to be harvested and no one was harvesting it.  The harvest was dying even as it longed to be gathered in.  Further on in the field, there was a river.  In and around this river people of all ages were splashing and swimming.  Some were simply standing there staring into it, but none of them could hear the man crying out to them about the harvest.  They couldn't see or hear his cries.  All they focused on was the pleasant wonderfulness of the river.  While all around them, there was an abundant harvest dying.  Parts of the field had been carefully tended.  The majority, however, hadn't been cared for.  In the midst of the field were stones, headstones with dates of harvests that had passed by without being harvested.  Portions of the field had been harvested.  Various areas were harvested with neatly tied sheaves of grain.  In these sections were stones with the names of saints who had been faithful and diligent to bring in a harvest of souls during their lives.  Saints such as Corrie Ten Boom, Dwight L. Moody, and still others whose names were unknown.  Yet so much of the harvest remained ungathered, dying in the field.  There was a worker in the field.  It was Jesus.  He was working faithfully in the field.  Yet so many people were at the river. 

As I read the email's message, I began to weep and pray.  How often do I, like the people at the river, eagerly seek out and search for the refreshing river of the Lord while giving no thought to the harvest all around me?  Please don't misunderstand, I have a longing and a hunger for others to come to Jesus.  I long for the harvest to be gathered in.  Yet, do I have a complete understanding or grasp of what this means?  I think not.  Coming from a long line of farmers, I know full well of harvest's hard work, long hours, and never-ending busyness.  In spite of all my head understands, my heart hasn't even begun to comprehend the severity of the situation.  I grieve over a farmer's lost crops in the physical, but what about my Heavenly Father's field of souls?  Should not my grief for lost souls far exceed an earthly loss? 

Dear Lord, forgive me for being blinded and caught up in my own understanding rather than allowing you to give me yours.  I pray the Lord of the harvest would send forth the laborers.  In Jesus' name, Amen.

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