Every time we give Jesus to the one standing in front of us we have harvested their heart for Christ at some level. Whenever people get a drink from the eternal life of Christ springing up from our innermost being, we’ve harvested a heart. When Jesus first met the woman at the well in John 4, He was alone, for His disciples had gone into Sychar to buy some food. I don’t know if Jesus sent them away or simply let it happen, but it was necessary because they weren’t yet ready for what Jesus was about to do. Normally, Jews didn’t pass through Samaria at all because of their racial and religious prejudice towards them. John 4:9 tells us that “Jews had no dealings with Samaritans,” and Jewish men never spoke to an unknown woman in public, and yet here Jesus is, not only speaking to a Samaritan woman but asking to drink from her water pot. Also remember that this woman was a public scandal to the people of her region.
At the very end of her encounter and conversation with Jesus, verse 27 tells us, “and at this point His disciples came, and they marveled that he had been speaking with a woman.” Again, the disciples weren’t prepared for this. They were still young in the School of Christ and didn’t quite get it yet, but Jesus was about to teach them another course in Christlikeness.
After the woman left Jesus, she went into the city and told all the men, “Come, see a man who told me all things that I have done; this is not the Christ, is it? They went out of the city and were coming to Him.” John 4:29 – 30.
In verse 35, Jesus offered His disciples a breakthrough when He said to them, “Do you not say, there are four months, and then comes the harvest? Behold I say to you, lift up your eyes, and look on the fields that they are white for harvest.” What was happening in front of them that would cause Jesus to say to them – lift up your eyes and look on the fields that are white for harvest? All the men who had heard the woman’s testimony were coming (I imagine still at some distance) toward Jesus. They were the hearts ready for harvesting. They weren’t just Samaritans, anymore than the woman at the well was just a woman or just a Samaritan woman. They, and she, were hearts ready for harvesting. Jesus was inviting His disciples to – lift up their eyes – and see people through a different lens; His lens. Jesus told me a while back, “The person standing in front of you, no matter who that person might be, is the most important person you’ve ever known.” Every person standing in front of you is a divine appointment and an opportunity to reap a harvest. Don’t think of harvesting as just about winning lost souls for Christ. It certainly can be that, but it can also be praying for someone to get healed, or a simple act of love, or a joyful smile, or caring undivided attention that conveys the life of Christ to them. This fallen world full of broken people is a field white for harvesting. Lift up your eyes!