In John chapter 4 verse 35, Jesus asked His disciples a question. He said, “Don’t you guys have a saying, ‘There are still four months, and then comes the harvest?’” And then He went on to say, “But I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields. They are already white for harvest.” And of course, He was talking about the crowds of people that were right at that very moment on their way to Him from the city of Sycar to hear Him preach the gospel. And right away, it’s clear that Jesus sees the harvest of souls differently than most of us do.
Most of us, when we think about the people in the circles of our lives’ influence coming to faith, we think of it as a future event, something we are still working toward, that are we still planting, and watering, and feeding, and pruning. There’s work to be done. But Jesus said, “No.” He said, “Others have sown, others have labored. You get to reap. The harvest is now.”
Now the other day, one of my grandsons who’s almost three was with me. And I asked him to show me the vegetable garden that had helped his other set of grandparents plant on a fenced off area on their property. And so, we were on our way walking there. And getting close enough that I could see the rows of vegetables and flowers even though we weren’t close enough for me to see the signs that indicated which variety was which, I could tell the tomato plants. And I could see that there were a lot of green tomatoes. And I thought to myself, “You know, they’re going to have a sizable harvest of tomatoes in a little bit.”
And right about that point, my grandson who’d been walking right by my side, took off like a bolt of lightning and ran for those tomato plants. And before I knew it, he’d grabbed hold of the only red, ripe tomato in the bunch, pulled it off the plant, and ate it in about three bites. And I was like stunned. I thought, “Woah! Did I just witness my grandson eat a tomato of his own free will without being forced to?” And then, when I got passed the shock of that little statistic, I thought, “You know, I never even saw the red tomato.” But my grandson, that’s the only one he saw.
I think that when Jesus surveys the planting of His gospel garden He tends to focus on the red ones. I want to do more of that too.