Ask the Lord of the harvest

Before Jesus says go, he says pray. And the prayer he gives them is oddly specific — not for open hearts, not for boldness, but for workers.

He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore, ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest field.” — Luke 10:2 (OTB)

He had said the same thing before, and Matthew records what prompted it:

When he saw the crowds, he was moved with compassion for them, because they were troubled and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. — Matthew 9:36 (OTB)

The diagnosis came from looking at people, and the prescription was prayer for workers.

Notice which shortage he names

Everything in us wants to fix the demand side. Make people more interested. Find a better argument, a better event, a better moment.

Jesus does not do that. He says the harvest is already plentiful and the workers are few, and then tells them to pray about the shortage that actually exists. If he is right, then the bottleneck between your town and the gospel is not receptivity. It is that almost nobody is looking.

What the prayer does to you

Praying for laborers changes what you notice for the rest of the day. It is very hard to ask God for workers in the morning and then move through the afternoon without seeing anyone.

That is most of the mechanism. Discernment is not a spiritual gift a few people have; it is what attention turns into when you have asked God for something and then gone looking for the answer.

A habit that costs nothing

Set a daily alarm for 10:02 — morning or evening, whichever you will actually notice.

When it goes off, pray Luke 10:2. Ask for workers. Then name one or two people out loud and ask God to open a door with them this week.

It takes fifteen seconds and it is the most reliable version of this habit anyone has found, because it does not depend on remembering. If you do nothing else from this class, do this one, and give it a month.