Moving the Stones

You're probably content not to always be the harvester. By the time you have any experience on the field at all, you understand the true meaning of Paul's words that "one plants, one waters, one harvests, but God gives the increase".

But you probably feel better when you realize where in that chain you are working. When you are bumping up against roadblocks of every kind and feel that you aren't even getting to sow seeds, frustration sets in. When you pray week in and week out for significant conversations that never happen, for deepening relationships that never quite get off the ground, for divine appointments that don't seem to come - you wonder. You question the call, you re-examine the steps that led you to presume this location was God's will, you look for open doors elsewhere in an attempt to go where God is working ... and still, you stay put, wondering what to do when the soil is hard.

Maybe God put you there to move stones.

I ran across this concept in my studies today. Paul Pierson referenced it in the context of workers who toiled for 50 years to garner 5 new believers. Pierson writes:

...there are people whose mission is not to reap, not even to sow, not even to plow the field, but, as one put it, to take the stones away from the field so that others can plow and others can sow and others can reap.

Lifting stones takes a strong body. Likewise, lifting spiritual stones requires a strong spirit. God didn't put you there because you are a failure - instead, He put you there to put within you a strong spirit to lift the stones away. To prepare the way of the Lord.

Come through! Come through the gates! Prepare the way for the people! Build it! Build the roadway! Remove the stones! Lift a signal flag for the nations! (Isa. 62:10)