Slow and Steady Until the Harvest is Complete

I love to watch a wheat field being harvested. Sometimes just one combine is traveling back and forth, but often there are two or even

more.

Each combine travels the wheat field with a slow and study pace, stopping only to be emptied of grain when it becomes full. They go across flat ground, up hills and down hills. They keep going until the harvest is complete.

Have you ever thought what would happen if harvest time came and went but no one took the time to go out into the field to actually collect the crops?

King Solomon had these words to say about that in Proverbs 10:5 (NKJV), "He who gathers in summer is a wise son; He who sleeps in harvest is a son who causes shame." But hear the Message's paraphrase—

Make hay while the sun shines—that’s smart;
    go fishing during harvest—that’s stupid.

That sort of puts it bluntly. Going fishing isn't bad. But fishing when the harvest is ready to be collected—"that's stupid."

What does this have to do with praying for our children and their schools? A lot!

The harvest is a life-giving work. Do we see our prayers as priority life-giving work?

We are no different that the first disciples of Jesus, who He sent out into the harvest field to do His Father's work. (Matthew 10:12 The Voice) Prayer is important harvest work. In fact, the success of the harvest depends on faithfulness in prayer.

This is what Andrew Murray wrote: "The Lord has surrendered His work to His Church. He has made Himself dependent on them as His Body, through whom His work must be done. The power which the Lord gives His people to exercise in heaven and earth is real; the number of laborers and the measure of the harvest does actually depend on their prayer."

He goes on to exhort us to set apart time and give all of ourselves to our intercessory work for these reasons:

• "It will lead us into the fellowship of that compassionate heart of His that led Him to call for our prayers.
• It will give us the insight of our royal position as children of the King whose will counts for something with the great God in the advancement of His Kingdom.
• We will feel that we really are God's fellow workers on earth, that we have earnestly been entrusted with a share in His work.
• We will become partakers in the work of the soul.
• But—[hear this praying moms]—we will also share in the satisfaction of the soul as we learn how, in answer to prayer, blessing has been given that otherwise would not have come."

So let’s not get tired of doing what is good.

At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.

Galatians 6:9 (NLT)