The Workers are Few

Lately I have been reading about the life of Charlotte Diggs Moon (otherwise known as Lottie Moon.) This woman was pretty incredible! She was used by God in mission work to China during the 1800’s. If you’ve never studied her much, or haven’t even heard of her, you would do well to go the International Mission Board website (see link on this page) and read her biography and quotes. Here’s a quote from her that I found on the IMB page that is at once inspiring and convicting.

“Thirty miles from Pingtu city is a gold mine. Nestled close among low-lying hills are two foreign houses and the buildings over the mine. Several American miners are there in the employ of the Chinese government. These men are living a hard, dull, isolated life, in a remote region, far from home and friends, with the sole purpose of worldly gain. So much for the devotees of Mammon. One cannot help asking sadly, why is love of gold more potent than love of souls? The number of men mining and prospecting for gold in Shantung is more than double the number of men representing Southern Baptists! What a lesson for Southern Baptists to ponder.” — Lottie Moon, Pingtu, China, Feb. 9, 1889

I guess what is most convicting to me when I read about Miss Moon (she never married) was that she had a deep compassion for souls. This is often times something I lack. God develop within me the desire to serve you more through serving others, especially the lost! Sometimes I am not even aware of my own complacency and self-centeredness.

The Gospel of Matthew shows us in Chapter 9, verses 36-37 that we should be like Jesus, and thus like Lottie Moon. For in that chapter it says, “Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd….The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.” In a time and in a world where the workers are few, may we seek to be more like the single, 4 foot 3 inches tall Lottie Moon, who famously said, “I would I had a thousand lives that I might give them to China!”