Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few. Matthew 9:37
(Though this may be helpful for anyone, it may be particularly so for young people.)
Have you ever had someone call your house or your cell phone over and over until you finally got sick of them calling? It may even be someone you don’t mind talking to, but when the phone rings continuously because of them, it gets pretty annoying. When I was in high school, I had just such a friend. I enjoyed talking to him and being around him, but he called almost every night asking for help with homework. It got to the point where I would walk to the phone to see who was calling, look at the caller ID, then turn and walk away, whistling as if I hadn’t heard it ringing. My brothers wouldn’t be far behind me to check the caller ID. “Steve, Joe (name changed) is on the phone,” they would yell. “Who?” I’d ask as if I didn’t already know. “Joe!” “Oh, I’m coming – oh look at that – I just missed it. Well, maybe he’ll call back.” The problem is, he would usually keep calling back until someone finally answered the phone and left me no way out of talking to him (for the fifth time that evening!).
Many young people treat the call of God on their lives as if He is nothing more than a friend bugging them over the telephone. They start off with a tender heart, ready to answer God’s call for anything He wants them to do in their lives. As they get older, however, they get less and less sensitive to His calling. They sit in youth services, and when they start feeling the tug of God on their hearts, they just let it “ring.” They can tell by the “caller ID” that it is God, but they are no longer interested in what He has to say. It’s not that God has stopped calling young men into the ministry that has led to the lack of pastors and missionaries (and, naturally, pastors’ and missionaries’ wives) in the world today, it’s that young men have stopped answering God’s calls. They have begun to ignore Him because they feel they have something better they can do with their time. They are afraid God may ask of them more than they are willing to give.
Do you realize that over 150,000 people will die today, and every day – most of them going to an eternal hell? This is not the time to ignore God’s call, and to pretend you cannot hear Him calling you. It is not the time to spend life living for yourself. There are thousands of souls that may be waiting for you to pastor them here in America or to be a missionary to them overseas. The longer you wait, and the longer you ignore God, the more people will die without Christ. The “phone” is ringing, and God is on the other end. Will you answer His call?
Read also: Matthew 9:35-38
Quote of the day: “The secret of an unsuccessful life lies in an unsurrendered will.”
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