Just a little insight into me, I cannot eat dinner late at night, it keeps me from sleeping.
Throughout my life I have had countless nights where I woke up an hour or two into my rest and couldn't go back to sleep. If I am being honest, one of the things I look forward to in heaven is that my body won't need the rest that it needs today, and that there is no night! Christi and I talk about this a lot, because she loves sleeping!
One of the reasons I have an aversion to the night is because of my lack of rest many nights. I will wake up and then for 2-3 hours will sit in the silence and think. I think about all kinds of things: that are weighing me down, things that need to be done, and even things out of my influence. I have told myself many times to "stop thinking" so that can go back to sleep...yeah, that never works!
Over the past year or so I have decided that when I have restless nights, I have to focus on something and not just random thoughts. So I open my Bible and look for the RED LETTERS. Well, last night was a RED LETTER night. I read Matthew 9, a passage that I have read any times, but really landed on Matt. 9:37-38.
It says:
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.
Every good pastor knows this passage and loves it, but last night I was caught by the word "earnestly." I don't know if it is because I learned it first in the KJV that says "beseech the Lord," but I wanted to know what the deep meaning of that word earnestly was. So I looked to see what the word was in the Greek. Well, I found that the word earnestly wasn't there. It was simply a word that the translator used to unpack and give the meaning of what Jesus was trying to convey. The Greek word is deomai which means to pray or plead. When I looked deeper into things, I found that the majority of the time this word was used in scripture that it was translated "to beg or begged." This is where the Lord moved in me...
He is calling me to be a beggar! As a pastor I find myself constantly praying for a harvest! Yet, Jesus tells me that what I am praying for is already there! I am praying for the wrong thing! Instead of begging Him for a harvest, I need to be begging Him to send out laborers into the harvest! ME! I need to plead with and beg God to let His kingdom come, and plead for the grace and mercy to be one who labors with the bountiful harvest that He has prepared!
This has changed the way that I will move forward. I don't know how long I begged the Lord to send out laborers, specifically this laborer, last night, but I fell asleep doing it.
It is strange when you realize that a passionate prayer that you have been praying was the wrong prayer. It is also wonderful when the Grace of God wakes you up in the night to fix you and set you on His course...
I want to be a beggar. The Harvest is already plentiful....just not enough beggars...
