Your Kingdom Come: A Missionary’s Prayer for More Laborers

Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Matthew 6:10

For years, these words have been a daily staple in my prayers. Like many of you, I’ve recited them, reflected on them, and believed in their profound truth. But recently, the full, disruptive weight of what I was asking for truly landed. This isn’t just a polite request for divine influence; it’s a prayer for an invasion.

Think about it. We are petitioning for Heaven’s rule to descend, to permeate, to take over our lives, our communities, our societies, the very nations where we serve. We’re asking for King Jesus to assert His authority, to establish His reign in places where His sovereignty has been ignored, resisted, or unknown. It’s a prayer for a divine intervention of the most transformative kind.

The Double-Edged Sword of Invasion

My personal experience in Ukraine has etched the disruptive reality of earthly invasions into my soul. Until February 24, 2022, Ukraine was, for the most part, a peaceful and comfortable place. Then, in a moment, everything fractured. The statistics are staggering and heartbreaking: according to recent UN and IOM reports, around 6.5 million refugees from Ukraine have been recorded globally, and an estimated 3.7 million people remain internally displaced within the country. Countless lives lost, and hundreds of thousands of homes reduced to rubble. We had left for a 10-week training program just before the invasion. Now, three and a half years later, we find ourselves still in Canada, the war’s end still an uncertain hope.

Invasions, by their very nature, turn worlds upside down. They change everything.

Yet, not all invasions are purely destructive. Some invasions also bring liberation. D-Day was a pivotal moment when Allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy, marking the beginning of the end for Nazi tyranny in Europe. That invasion, though met with fierce resistance and immense cost, was a spearhead of freedom, a reclaiming of territory from an oppressive regime. It brought deliverance to millions.

So, an invasion can bring oppression, or it can bring deliverance. Maybe every military invasion brings some of both. But one thing is certain: invasions are always profoundly disruptive. Life, as it was known, ceases to be.

Praying for Heaven’s “D-Day”

When Jesus taught His disciples to pray, “Your kingdom come,” He was, in effect, training them to petition for a heavenly D-Day. He was teaching them to ask God to “come back and reestablish your reign on this earth,” to “come and be King on this earth again.” This is a very different kind of invasion than the one Ukraine is enduring. But it is an invasion nonetheless – a divine initiative to reclaim and restore.

How does God answer this audacious prayer? The ultimate and complete fulfillment will be when Jesus returns in glory with His angels, visibly establishing His kingdom on earth – the Second Coming.

“For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.”

Matthew 16:27

The early Christians yearned for this, their hearts crying out, “Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!”

The Kingdom’s Inbreaking Today

But is that future, cataclysmic arrival the only way the kingdom comes? No. Jesus’ core message was, “The kingdom of God has come near” (Mark 1:15). The kingdom first broke into our world not with legions of angels and celestial trumpets, but in humility and apparent weakness, through the person of Jesus Himself – a baby in a manger, a carpenter from Nazareth, a teacher who embraced the marginalized, a savior on a cross.¹ See my blog post on the weakness of the kingdom.

Even today, the kingdom often advances without fanfare, without media frenzies. It frequently arrives like a mustard seed – small, almost unnoticed, yet containing immense potential for growth. The power of the Spirit is actively at work, often in ways the world doesn’t perceive. Jesus Himself promised,

Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.

John 14:23

This isn’t the Second Coming; it’s the intimate, personal invasion of Jesus into a life, taking up residence as King and Lord.

We witness this divine “coming” in our home countries and on the mission field, sometimes in ways that hardly are noticed. A child, with simple faith, entrusts their life to Jesus. A teenager, resisting peer pressure, chooses baptism and dedicates their life to serving Christ. A family, stepping out in faith, extends a hand of welcome and practical help to an immigrant family in Jesus’ name. A marriage on the brink of collapse finds reconciliation and healing through submission to God’s ways.

Every time an individual, a family, or a community chooses to submit to Jesus as Lord and align with His Word, the kingdom is advancing. God’s will is being done on earth, mirroring the perfect obedience of heaven. So, when we pray “Your kingdom come,” we’re praying for both comings: the glorious return in the age to come, and the present, often quiet, incursions of His reign in this age.

How Do We Pray for This Kingdom, Now?

Jesus was unequivocal about the importance of prayer. He modeled it, taught it, and commanded it repeatedly. He assured His disciples that the Father would give them what they asked for in His name. But when it comes to specifics for how to pray for His kingdom’s advance in the here and now, what guidance did He give?

It’s insightful to note what Jesus didn’t explicitly tell His disciples to pray for. He never instructed them to pray for the overthrow of the Roman occupiers. Jesus didn’t tell them to pray for the cessation of persecution; instead, He predicted it as an inevitability for His followers. He didn’t command them to pray for the eradication of world hunger or poverty, though He clearly cared for the poor and hungry.

This isn’t to say praying for these things is wrong – far from it. But they weren’t His primary, explicit prayer directives for kingdom expansion.

What did He teach them to pray for specifically?

• For personal provision: “Give us today our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11).
• For personal forgiveness: “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matthew 6:12).
• For personal protection from temptation and evil: “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one” (Matthew 6:13).

These are vital prayers for our own spiritual health and dependence on God. But what about praying for others, for the broader advance of the kingdom? He told them to pray for their enemies (Matthew 5:44), a radical command indeed, but even this focuses on whom to pray for, not precisely what to pray for them.

It might seem, at first glance, that while Jesus commands us to seek His kingdom first, He offers limited specific instruction on how to pray for its global manifestation.

The One Glaring, Glorious Exception: Pray for Workers

But there is one monumental exception, a command so clear and repeated that it demands our utmost attention. It’s found in both Matthew 9 and Luke 10:

Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.’

Matthew 9:37–38

He told them, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.’

Luke 10:2

Notice the context. In Matthew, this command comes just before Jesus sends out the twelve. In Luke, it’s part of His instructions to the seventy-two disciples embarking on a subsequent mission. Jesus uttered these words on at least two distinct occasions, underscoring their critical importance. This isn’t a prayer for ourselves or even our immediate circle. This is a prayer for the vast, ripe harvest and for the laborers needed to gather it in – a prayer often for people we may never know by name, in places we may never visit.

Understanding the ‘Harvest’ and Its Needs

The “harvest” is one of Jesus’ most potent images for the kingdom of God. I grew up on a grain farm, and harvest time was a period of intense excitement, stress, and urgency. The singular goal was to get the crop in before the rains or, worse, the snow. I recall one year, long after I’d left home, walking past my brother-in-law’s field in late October. The crop was still standing, a golden anomaly in a landscape of bare, harvested fields. I felt an almost unbearable urge to call him, to ask if he’d forgotten! He did get it in, just barely, but the delay was due to a shortage of available combines and operators.

In my childhood, my father had one combine. If it broke down during harvest, it was a crisis. The tension was palpable. Later, when my brother took over, he sometimes brought in help. Dad still tells the story of my brother’s sister-in-law arriving with a larger, faster combine. She’d lap Dad’s older machine as they worked the same field. But far from resentment, Dad felt immense gratitude. More workers meant the harvest was gathered more than twice as fast.

Jesus’ Explicit Command: Ask for Laborers

This is precisely what Jesus is talking about. He tells us to pray for more workers, to ask for help, and then He immediately models what He means by sending out the twelve, and then the seventy-two. These weren’t just any workers; they were kingdom workers, disciples sent to proclaim the good news of the King from heaven, to demonstrate His compassion for the broken, and to invite people to repent and follow Him.

This, I believe, is a primary, Jesus-ordained way we are to pray for His kingdom to come: by asking the Lord of the Harvest to thrust out laborers into His fields.

The King’s Curious Staffing Problem

Consider Jesus’ situation. He saw the vastness of the need.I have written more about this scarcity of workers in another blog post in this series – The Kingdom of God: the workers are few.

Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

Matthew 9:35-36

The historian Josephus records that Galilee had 204 cities and villages. Even if Jesus visited a new one each day (excluding Sabbaths), it would take nearly eight months to cover them all. If He spent two days in each, it would be over fifteen months. And soon, His popularity as a healer meant He could scarcely enter towns due to the overwhelming crowds. Yet, His heart ached for these “harassed and helpless” people.

So, He commissioned the Twelve. But even then, the workers were still few. A few months later (Luke 10), He sends out seventy-two more. Now, with a workforce of eighty-four (plus Himself), the refrain remains: “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.”

Isn’t it puzzling that the King of Kings experienced a staffing shortage? Earthly kings, as Samuel warned Israel, conscripted people. King Saul “took into his service” any mighty or brave man he saw (1 Samuel 14:52). But Jesus, the ultimate King, operates differently. He has legions of angels at His disposal (Matthew 26:53), yet He chooses to invite, not coerce. His solution to the worker shortage wasn’t conscription, but prayer.

He instructs His disciples to “ask” (Greek deomai – to beg, to implore) the Lord of the Harvest to “send out” (Greek ekballo – to cast out, to thrust out forcefully) workers. This isn’t a polite suggestion; it’s an urgent plea for God the Father to act decisively, to propel individuals into His harvest fields. The need was, and is, immense.

The Shortage Endures: A Call to Persistent Prayer

Did this shortage resolve after Pentecost? While the Spirit’s coming ignited explosive growth, and new believers scattered, sharing the good news, they primarily reached those within their own Jewish culture. The first deliberate, planned cross-cultural mission outreach by the church in Acts – sending Paul and Barnabas to the Gentiles – occurred about fifteen years after Pentecost. The apostles had heard the Great Commission nearly two decades earlier, yet the focused effort to reach beyond their immediate cultural sphere took time to materialize.

And even then, the territory before Paul and Barnabas was vast – the entire Roman Empire. A huge harvest, yet so few dedicated workers.

Dear fellow missionaries, does this not resonate deeply with our own experiences? This description is as apt today as it was 2,000 years ago. King Jesus is articulating an ongoing reality within His Kingdom: the harvest is still plentiful, and the workers are still few.

In my 40 years in cross-cultural missions, I’ve seen strategies shift, countries open and close, and methods evolve. But one constant remains: the overwhelming need for more workers to address the boundless opportunities. Have you ever heard of a mission agency laying off staff because there wasn’t enough kingdom work to go around? The reality is usually the opposite. Burnout from overwork, not boredom from lack of purpose, is the persistent challenge we face. This need is particularly acute among unreached people groups, where 42% of the world’s population resides, yet only about 3% of missionaries are focused.

Therefore, Jesus’ command to pray for workers is not a historical relic; it’s a pressing, contemporary mandate. It’s a prayer I lift daily, and I urge you to do the same.

Why So Few? Perhaps a Lesson in Divine Strategy

But why? Why hasn’t the Lord of the Harvest, in response to millennia of fervent prayers, supplied an overwhelming abundance of workers? I don’t possess the full answer, but a passage from Judges often comes to mind. The Lord told Gideon,

You have too many men. I cannot deliver Midian into their hands, or Israel would boast against me, ‘My own strength has saved me’.

Judges 7:2

Could it be that this persistent scarcity of workers is, in part, designed to keep us utterly dependent on God? To ensure that when the harvest is gathered, the glory goes to Him alone? It forces us to acknowledge that what is accomplished in His kingdom is not by our might, nor by our numbers, but by His Spirit. God has always graciously used the few to accomplish much.

Sustaining the Few: Our Shared Responsibility

If the workers are indeed few, then a critical question arises for us on the field and for those who support us: how do we ensure the few don’t become zero? How do we foster resilience, health, and perseverance in those already serving, especially when the fruit of our labor can take so long to appear? Entering a new people group, learning language and culture, building trust – this is painstaking, long-haul work. Fruit often only begins to emerge after a decade or more. If workers leave prematurely, after five or even eight years, they, and the people they serve, may never see the harvest that was ripening.

The solutions are multifaceted:

• Ensuring adequate financial and logistical support.
• Championing rhythms of Sabbath rest and regular breaks.
• Prioritizing deep spiritual nourishment and community.
• Training those on the field in effective strategies

But above all, we must pray. Pray for those currently in the field, for their protection, wisdom, and endurance. And pray, as Jesus commanded, for the Lord of the Harvest to thrust out more workers.

The call of “Your kingdom come” is a radical prayer for a divine invasion. And a central strategy for participating in that invasion is to earnestly, persistently ask the Lord of the Harvest to send reinforcements. May this be the cry of our hearts, for His glory and the sake of the perishing.

Series Navigation

<< The kingdom of God – in clay pots

.