Day 7

Attach Yourself to Your Prayers Day 7

“Pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” —Matthew 9:38 NKJV

After my dad, Dr. Walter (Bud) Bruce, former president of Wesley College, (where I was also president for twelve years) went to be with the Lord, Sandie and I stopped by to have an evening prayer time with my mom. We were carrying on a family tradition Mom and Dad started at the beginning of their marriage.

Of course, our thoughts were on Dad and the rich legacy of love and the true Christ follower role model he had left us. I remembered that, shortly after graduating from high school, while he was not yet a Christian, he made a covenant with God one day as he lay in a culvert while a tornado passed over him. He prayed, “Lord, if you’ll spare my life, I’ll go to church Sunday and become a Christian.” He did so the next Sunday.

Against that backdrop, I read Matthew 9:35–38, which closes with, “Pray the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out laborers into his harvest.” Mom told us a story that happened a few days after his culvert prayer. He heard his pastor preach on this verse, and a few days later, he was reading this passage in the Bible in his own devotional time. This became a daily practice for him, for all who knew him, knew him as a devoted man of prayer and the Word, and he began praying earnestly, in response to the minister’s message, “Lord, send forth workers into the harvest!” As he continued interceding before the Lord, God spoke clearly to his inner spirit, saying, “Bud, I want you to be a worker in my harvest. I want you to be a minister of the gospel.” And Bud said, “Yes, Lord!”

God often does things like that, like calling an extremely bashful, exceedingly timid, painfully shy young man from the backwoods of Louisiana into the ministry. He went to God’s Bible School in Cincinnati, where he met Mom. Who would have thought God destined him to serve as college president, pastor, general conference president, and director of missions? To influence the lives of hundreds of people to serve as pastors, evangelists, and missionaries? To leave a legacy that would shape the church and people for many years to come? After retirement, at age seventy-one, he pastored a country church until his death at age eighty-two.

Only God could have thought such things, for only God could enable such a ministry to happen. That vision for ministry, born in an intimate relationship with God, continues beyond his lifetime today through hundreds of Christian ministers, trained at Wesley College, who are faithfully working in God’s harvest fields. Bud’s legacy continues through three children and their spouses, his grandchildren and great grandchildren, who serve (or will, as they grow up) in God’s harvest in various vocational or lay ministries.

When Jesus said, “Pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest,” the word pray, in this context, does not mean to just kneel down and pray, but to attach yourself to the request you are making to God. It’s like saying, “Lord, send people out into the harvest. And if you want to send me, I
am available. Bud Bruce attached himself to his prayers, and God multiplied his ministry in ways that are rare among men. The words of a song I wrote echo this commitment: “Lord, I’ll go where you want me to go. Lord, I’ll do what you want me to do. Lord, I’ll say what you want me to say. Lord, I’ll be what you want me to be.”

Lord, I want to be there with you—going where you lead me, accomplishing what you commission me to do, saying what you empower me to communicate, becoming all you created me to be.

"Lord, keep me attached to my prayer: send out laborers into your harvest, and use me as one of them. I’m available. Use me as you wish."

by Dr. Sam Bruce, President, Sam & Sandie Bruce Ministries; Pastor, Hope Point Church, Pearl, Mississippi