Reflection on Matthew 9:38

Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.

For the most part, I get the gist of this and I know it’s more about educating the masses about God, but this particular verse still confuses me a little, so I looked up the additional comments in the NLT Illustrated Study bible, and for reference, it mentions a few other verses:

Matthew 13:24-30 which basically says to let the weeds grow with the wheat, if you try to pull out the weeds prematurely, you could destroy the wheat, so let them grow together, then when harvest time comes, the weeds can then be separated and burned.

This way I can understand and see the similarity between plants and people.  You try to remove the wicked now, they’ll take the good down with them.  God knows what’s in our hearts and only He can really tell who will join him in heaven and who will be destroyed in the fires of hell.

Matthew 13: 37-41 clarifies this and explains simply that the world is the field.  Jesus is the farmer that plants all the wheat (people).  The devil plants the weeds (also people).  The time of harvest is Judgement Day (or the end of the world), and the angels will be the harvesters, sorting out the weeds from the wheat.

I’m reminded of a meme I shared recently on FB:  “Be the weed because despite everything, it still thrives, and I commented along with that meme that weeds can also look pretty when they blossom in flower.

And that is how the devil works.  He attracts us with things that appear positive but are in fact negative.  As one knows, if left unchecked, weeds, although pretty, can take over and completely obliterate a garden in their dominance.

How many times have you been attracted by something or somebody only to realise later, sometimes too late, that what you have been attracted to has affected you in a negative way?

This is a lesson for me as much as for you.  We need to focus our attention away from people and/or things that harm us mentally, physically and/or spiritually, and focus instead on God’s guidance as He knows what is best for us and doesn’t want to lose us amongst the weeds.