Journal Entry ~ 11/15/18

37 Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; 38 therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest." - Matthew 9:37-38

There is no doubt when you read this passage that His divine purpose is to reach the nations, and the way it will come to pass is through earnest prayer. We know from scripture that God wants us to pray earnestly and passionately.  God uses our prayer time to grow us. Let’s be clear - He doesn’t need us to pray - He already knows what’s on our hearts and He knows what we’re walking through right now. We are the ones who need to pray.  When we pray, we open up the lines of communication with the Spirit. If we’re truly open in prayer, the Spirit can do an amazing work in our hearts. Prayer humbles our hearts and submit our desires to God, and prayer aligns our priorities with His. 

In this passage, I think He's trying to re-direct our prayers to the things that matter to Him. How much time do we spend in prayer, praying about small things?  We pray about traffic, missing keys, illness, our workload, aches and pains, or difficult relationships. We pray about the small things in life - it's not that we shouldn't pray about the little things - we know from scripture that God cares about every hair on our head and keeps every tear we cry in a bottle. But, we do need to ask ourselves, do we pray as passionately for the things God wants us to pray for as we do for what we want?  We are told in this verse that we should be praying ~ earnestly ~ for the lost souls of this world. I can honestly say that my prayers are selfishly for my life, my family, and my friends the majority of the time...with the occasional prayer that reaches outside of me. 

Do I pray with the same compassion as I do for my sons, for the rest of the world?  No, I don't. And that needs to change. I want God to give me His eyes and His heart to care for the world as He does, so I can stop prioritizing my needs over the world's needs...and so I pray less about little things like traffic, and more about the big things like all the lost souls sitting in traffic with me. 


Press on ~ you are loved ❤️

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