Not a Normal Harvest

It is once again harvest time in the Midwest.  My small gravel country road is transformed into a parade route for green and red, and an occasisonal yellow, combines headed to a harvest field.  It has always been one of my favorite times of the year and my mind has always reflected on the words that Jesus had to say about the harvest. 

This year has been different.  With an early spring, seeds were in the ground early.  Depending on the day they were planted determined whether the 4 inch deluge of rain we received would cause the seed to rot in the ground or emerge with the return of the sunshine.  Some fields had to be replanted early in the season adding time and expense.  Then day after day of scourching 100 degree heat baked the ground and crops were stressed.  Drought became the reality as state after state went without rain.  Late summer storms with high winds swept across corn fields with devastating results.  Whole fields were flattened while others had patches here and there that were down.  Because of the high heat and low moisture, large ears filled with kernels are not to be found.  Instead, short stubby ears with corn spotted on the cob are the norm. Black mold covered stalk after stalk.   In short, the harvest field this year where I live is not the normal harvest field I have known in the past.

So do you even bother to harvest these fields?   Any farmer will never question that the harvest will come in, but harvesting  fields where half the stalks are on the ground and the other half are bent over will require some adjustments.   How do you harvest ears of corn that should be 8 or 9 inches long, but are only 5 or 6 inches long. Believe it or not that is a problem. There have to be adjustments.  There will be a lot of adjustments on the chains and belts.  The head of the combine will be set as low as possible so rocks and bad terrain are going to be a problem.  s.  Hot, dry, dirty fields are always a recipe for fires so caution will be taken to make sure equipment stays clean.  This year combines have an added feature called a corn lifter (those are the yellow attachments) to help lift the stalks off the ground and into the combine head. Yes, this year’s corn crop will be harvested but adjustments will have to be made.  In order to harvest this year’s crop “slow” will be the watchword.

 I think back on what the harvest fields of souls looked like when I was a little girl and I wonder if I need to make some adjustments.  According to Wikipedia married adults now divorce two-and-a-half times as often as adults did 20 years ago and four times as often as they did 50 years ago... between 40% and 60% of new marriages will eventually end in divorce.  Added to that the concept of obsession with body image as a motivating factor for excessive fasting did not emerge until the mid-1960s, and it was not until 1980 that body image disturbance was formally included as a diagnostic criterion in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders published by the American Psychiatric Association.   According to www.save.org between 1952 and 1995, suicide in young adults nearly tripled.  As a child I cannot remember anyone who died from cancer.  There may have been, but today every child is probably aware of the dread of cancer.  When I was young I had never heard of cutting, but today it is not uncommon to hear of teens cutting. So many lives are bent and bruised.  So many feel diminished and insignificant.  So many feel like the potential they dreamed of has been greatly reduced or eliminated all together because of the economic downturn.  So many have fallen into the traps of Satan.  So do we even bother to try and bring in this harvest?  Yes and a thousand times YES.

Matthew 12:20  A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out, till he has brought justice through to victory.

My prayer today is that the Lord of the harvest will give me wisdom to bring in the bruised and the broken.  My prayer today is that I am willing to make whatever adjustments required to make sure that the harvest is brought in before it is too late.