The Case of the Not-so-Cute Garden Bunnies
By Doug Bing, Washington Conference president
Sometimes I am not a fan of cute little bunnies. I know that sounds terrible because they are pretty cute and when I was a boy we actually had pet rabbits.
However, this year I have not be very fond of them. You see, a mother rabbit decided that she would build a nest in our back yard and promptly produced a whole bunch of baby bunnies.
The problem arose because she built this nest about ten feet away from where I have a raised garden that was planted with all sorts of wonderful veggies planted. I like the whole planting things from seed, watching the veggies grow, and most of all harvesting and devouring fresh garden veggies.
You know where I am going don’t you? You are correct.
Before I knew the rabbits were in that area, they had helped themselves to many of the new little vegetable plants that were just peeking out from the ground. They pretty much destroyed the green bean plants.
However, a few survived and last night I was out in the garden and realized that it was harvest time for what was left of the green beans. Sadly, I was able to only pick 10 beans out of what was left of the entire row of decimated plants. I went into the house fuming a bit to my wife about those rabbits and my pitiful harvest. (Don’t worry too much; I have two other rows of beans coming up that are doing fine.)
Harvesting is rewarding and fun when there is a harvest. Jesus said the harvest of people for the kingdom is not like my bean harvest. He said the harvest is plentiful.
Luke 10: 2,3 states: “Then He said to them, “The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore, pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest. Go your way; behold, I send you out as lambs among wolves.”
The harvest in the Washington Conference and the world is plentiful. There are people all around each of us that we see and interact with that need to learn about the power of Jesus love for them. There are people all around that frankly are searching.
The first thing that Jesus says for the solution is for us to be praying for more people to help with the harvest, to make prayer the very first work that we think about when we think about the harvest and how few laborers there are.
The second thing that Jesus did was tell them to go into the harvest even though the laborers were few. In other words, don’t wait until we have all the laborers that are needed. Go out into the harvest and praying for others to help with the harvest and go even into tough places because God will bless.
When you read the rest of the Luke 10, you will see that when the people Jesus sent came back they came back praising God for the amazing things that had happened as they went prayerfully into the harvest fields.