(By Josiah Moffitt)
A few weeks ago, Grace sent me on a furniture expedition. These adventures start on Facebook Marketplace where she finds something she likes, and coordinates a pickup time. She then tells me how much money to bring, where to go, and when to be there.
I put an “Evidence for the Resurrection” gospel tract in my pocket and had a few ideas of how to start a gospel conversation with the man who was selling the furniture. When I arrived, I verified the condition of the chair and handed him the money. The man and I then spent a good number of minutes trying to get the large chair through the small front door. As we were loading it into the van, it started to rain.
“Oh no! I wonder if it will be raining too much for me to grill the chicken?” I thought as I hopped back into my van.
It wasn’t until I got home and felt the tract still in my pocket that I realized I had missed an opportunity for the gospel.
Ironically, I was preaching on the second part of John 4 that Sunday. The disciples returned from the Samaritan town of Sychar with food for Jesus, while the woman at the well was hurrying back into the town. Jesus tells them to open their eyes to the spiritual harvest. He says, “Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest” (John 4:35). In that moment, as the disciples lifted up their eyes, I can just imagine them seeing a stream of people leaving Sychar following the woman at the well to come see Jesus.
Now, the disciples had just visited the same Samaritan city in search of food, but due to tensions between the Samaritans and Jews, they had most likely avoided interactions as much as possible. The disciples were there to get food and get out. In their focus on the physical, they had missed the hungry souls in need of a Savior right in front of them. The woman at the well saw the spiritual needs of her city and, as a result, “From that city many of the Samaritans believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified” (John 4:39).
Like the disciples, I am often distracted by the physical and miss the spiritual harvest. I pray that the Lord will keep my eyes open to the harvest right in front of me.
This article was written in our April 2024 newsletter. You can sign up for the monthly newsletters here