The Road Devotional | Lent 2024

After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road. 

When reading the Gospels, we tend to fixate so much on the disciples that we forget Jesus sent many others to do ministry. Here, Jesus calls 72 different leaders to be sent out into the world.

Q. How have you been called by God? How are you responding? How will you take that calling into the world?

John Wesley notes about this chapter that, when it comes to calling working to join in God’s mission, “(God) alone can qualify and commission” those who do God’s work. We can often use our positions and standings to disqualify many others--sometimes in unintentional ways.

Q. How often do you stop to take a look at how you might be preventing someone from doing something God has called them to do?

Jesus’ command to “not greet anyone on the road” might feel almost antithetical to his teachings elsewhere. However, this isn’t Jesus commissioning them to be jerks, but rather recognizing the length of Jewish greetings and the immediacy/importance of God’s mission. He is encouraging them to not get caught up in meaningless social rituals.

Q. How do you regularly find ways to waste time that could be used to build up God’s Kin_dom? How often do you keep conversations on a superficial level rather than allowing them to go deeper?

God, I acknowledge that the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. I surrender myself to your will, just as the seventy-two surrendered to your instructions. Lead me, guide me, in every step I take. May I be encouraged to form deep connections with those that you place in my path.
Amen.