It's cooling off here, maybe we'll have that first frost by the end of the week.  With our schooling in full swing, its a bit tougher to get into the garden as much, and yet our tomato and tomatillo plants still have so much fruit on the vines.  With the threat of frost, there's an urgency to harvest anything that's good, as we wouldn't want it to go to waste.  The growth and placement of plants have been such that it can be tricky to find the ripe fruit...much of it is well hidden, much moreso than in the height of growing season. 

While looking through and hunting down those few ripe or close to ripe tomatoes and worrying a bit about all the green ones, I thought a lot about the sense of urgency I and other Christians should have as the signs of the times point more and more to the Lord's return.  All the more in this day, there seem to be so many distractions...multiple job households, all manners of entertainment and activities to dominate our lives...a world that runs to and fro without a solution.  A sense of urgency exists, yet so much challenge to find some of the hidden fruit as the ends of the earth have many people groups still to be reached.  And the concern for those who are just not yet ready to accept the gospel message as a personal invitation and need...the crops are ready to harvest, but as the end of the harvest approaches, is there a shortage of those genuinely preoccupied with the eternity of those who have not yet heard? 

Then He said to His disciples, "The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few.  Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest."  Matthew 9:37-38