“Then He said to them, ‘The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest’” (Lk 10:2).
The word translated “send out” is ekballo, to expel, to throw out, to thrust or drive out. It was used of a dislocated shoulder. It takes some force to break us loose from our orbit of the familiar. Perhaps the reason this petition is not prayed as often as it should be is the fear that I, my children, or my grandchildren may be the answer to my own prayer!
W.B. Anderson, a missionary to India, wrote the following in Far North in India: “Bible schools and seminaries can never supply the workers needed. My own sainted mother prayed as a young girl that the doors of the heathen countries might be opened. Afterward as a mother of ten children (eight of whom grew to manhood and womanhood), she prayed for laborers to enter these open doors, and God sent one of her sons to India and two of her daughters to China.”