This article is based on a devotional message given by Elder Jay Gallimore, Board Chair of Streams of Light International.
Anyone who has tended a garden or orchard knows there is something special about harvest time.
But you cannot get to the harvest without first passing through a season of waiting.
In the spring, the blossoms appear. Eventually, small fruit begins to form. The grapes are green. The apples are not ready. You cannot enjoy them yet, but their presence is a promise. Something is coming.
And that is a picture of the work God has given us to do.
At Streams of Light International, much of our work takes place before the harvest can be seen. A book is hand-delivered to a home. A Bible study is requested. A young person is trained for missionary service. A new worker learns how to reach a community. Someone prays for a family while walking towards the next home.
These may seem like small beginnings. Green grapes are not insignificant simply because they are not yet ripe. They are evidence of a harvest to come.
Protect the Harvest
Anyone who grows fruit also knows that reaching the harvest requires vigilance.
A late frost can destroy the blossoms. Insects can damage the fruit. Disease can ruin a crop that once looked promising. The grower cannot simply plant and walk away. He must watch, prepare, and think ahead.
The same is true in the work of God. There is an enemy who does not want the harvest gathered, and that means the work entrusted to us requires more than good intentions. It calls for prayer, careful planning, organization, cooperation, and dependence upon the Holy Spirit.
Elder Jay Gallimore put it this way: “We have to think ahead. We’ve got to be organized. We’ve got to coordinate.”
That is why training matters. It is why missionaries must be prepared before they are sent into the field. It is why systems are developed to help literature reach thousands of homes, why churches and ministry partners work together, and why prayer must undergird every effort. None of these things are ends in themselves. They are part of preparing for the harvest.
Picture the Harvest
There is great joy in gathering fruit after months of watching it grow. But the harvest we are laboring for is infinitely greater.
It is a harvest of souls.
What will it be like, one day, to meet someone in the kingdom who tells you, “You came to my door”? Perhaps they will remember the book someone placed in their hands. Perhaps a missionary will tell you that someone made it possible for them to receive training and enter the field. Perhaps someone will trace their journey back to a Bible study, an invitation, a prayer, or a simple act of faithfulness that God used to lead them to Christ.
Friends, picture the day when we finally see the eternal results of books distributed, missionaries trained, prayers offered, and lives invested in reaching others.
We cannot fully comprehend that day now. At present, much of what we see is still the promise of what is to come. We see the blossoms, the green grapes, and the green apples. We see books entering homes, Bible study interests being generated, missionaries being trained, and workers stepping into new fields.
The work is not finished, and this is no time to become careless or discouraged. It is a time to continue praying, giving, going, training workers, placing truth in homes, and laboring together in dependence upon the Holy Spirit. Each of us has an opportunity to take part in the work now, while the harvest is still being prepared.
There is a harvest coming.
And by the grace of God, may we each have a part in gathering it.