Misunderstanding prayer
If you’re old enough to catch the allusion, hum along with this question: Should I pray or should I go?
And the answer is… Yes.
Next chapter…
Chapter breaks in the Bible are a much later addition from when the text itself was written. They’re super helpful for finding our favorite verses and stories, but if we don’t read through the breaks, assuming that a change in chapter is a change in topic, we can quickly mount the heresy horse.
At the end of Matthew 9, Jesus makes the oft-quoted and oft-misunderstood statement, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest field.” If we assume that’s the end of the thought, we can easily breathe a sigh of relief since we never did like the thought of evangelism, anyway. Something like, “Whew - all I have to do is pray for God to send someone else, and I’m still right in line with Jesus’ intent.”
Try Luke too...
What we miss from only reading Matthew's gospel is that we don’t pray OR go, we pray AND go. In reading the parallel passage at the beginning of Luke 10, it’s much harder to gloss over this both/and. As such, we pray so that God can show us where to go, to whom to go, how to go. Prayer is absolutely critical to evangelism and mission, as any successful evangelist or missionary will tell you, but prayer doesn’t replace evangelism and mission. Rather, prayer focuses our evangelism and mission.
Prayer partnership
Prayer is a partnership with the Almighty, and what a breathtaking proposition that is! I use completely different examples to illustrate the same point in this week’s Both/And video episode HERE. In so very many ways, we have this heretical tendency to separate prayer from obedience, as if prayer is the only or most spiritual work. The biggest part of prayer is listening, so when we pray for someone to come to know Jesus, for instance, it’s highly likely that God may show us our part. If I pray for a job but fail to apply at the places God directs me to, I’ll stay unemployed.
God’s part and our part
God’s part is FAR bigger, but rarely isolated entirely from our part. Even when God parted the Red Sea, he gave Moses a role in the grand play. God could draw people to Himself and leave us out of the adventure entirely. But He rarely does. He reveals our part in the story. He points us in the right direction so we grow in our skill and understanding. He gives us courage to overcome our fear. He’s the master of timing so that we don’t try to barge down a closed door.
The harvest is plentiful, for certain. Pray… so you can get your marching orders.
