“Every day they pass me by,
I can see it in their eyes,
Empty people filled with care,
Headed who knows where?”

The morning is dark as I watch the lights of the city against the silhouette of distant hills. Headlights move like tiny ants along a dark path that leads into the day. In my wondering mind, I ask, “Where are you going?”

The prophet saw God’s people scattered along the hills like sheep without a shepherd. Jesus saw the same thing and was moved with compassion. “Pray for workers to go into the fields,” he said. “If ever the harvest was ripe, it is now.”

Jesus was moved with compassion. He was troubled for good lives that would never be fulfilled, a harvest that would spoil in the fields because no one told them of God’s Love.

It is not a lack of harvest that breaks the heart of God, but a lack of workers. This isn’t about not enough workers in the churches, but not enough in the field. As today’s song says:

“We are called to take His light,
To a world where wrong seems right
What could be too great a cost,
For sharing life with one who’s lost?”

People are longing to hear about the Love of God and the hope he gives. They not only want to hear it but see it in our lives. Are we ready and willing to give a reason for the peace we have found in Christ?

“People need the Lord,
People need the Lord,
When will we realize,
People need the Lord?”