These days, it seems I could throw a stone and hit two or three “help wanted” signs.
Maybe it’s different where you live. But where I live, there is no shortage of available work. Many businesses are still reeling from the “Great Resignation” indirectly triggered by the pandemic response.
Some of these organizations are feeling for the first time a sensation with which those of us in ministry are well-acquainted: the feeling you get when the needs around you outnumber your personnel. Even Jesus knew what it meant to be short on manpower, commenting as he looked out over the masses, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few” (Matthew 9:37).
Unlike the businesses where I live, my missionary friends overseas can’t easily hang a “help wanted” sign in their window. They’re dependent on the Lord and on his church to be raising up workers for the field.
As I meet with our missionaries and see the many fertile grounds around the globe that need new seed sowers, I’ve often thought of Paul’s vision of the man from Macedonia in Acts 16. The apostle had made multiple attempts to take the gospel east, but the Holy Spirit prevented him. Finally, he ends up on the west coast of modern-day Turkey in Troas. In the night, a Macedonian man appears to him, pleading, “Come over to Macedonia and help us” (v. 9). Paul concluded God had called him to preach the gospel in Macedonia, and off he went.
History would never be the same. Upon landing in Philippi, Paul led Lydia to the Lord (Acts 16:14-15)—the first European Christian convert named in Scripture. It’s difficult to imagine how church history might have unfolded had the gospel not landed in Europe and continued its westward march.
Many Christians sitting in our pews are waiting to hear God’s call to the nations. Yet for many of them, what they truly need is not a direct divine voice, but the voice of a fellow man—or woman—echoing the words of the Macedonian, “Come over here and help us.”
This issue of Message Magazine is devoted to the missionaries calling out to their fellow believers for this kind of help. We see deep physical and spiritual needs around the world, and faithful missionary teams are already engaged in the work. They simply need more laborers.
Maybe you’ve been waiting to see the words “help wanted” posted prominently somewhere you’ve dreamed of. Consider this that sign.
