The Farm With One Day Left
Picture this: you wake up and you live on a farm now. Not visiting — you live here. Out every window are fields of grain stretching past where you can see the end of them, and the owner asks you to help bring in the harvest. There is one catch: there is only one day to do it. Whatever is still standing tonight is lost.
Ask most people what to do first and they say the same thing: grab a blade and start cutting. But one person swinging a scythe across a field that size does not bring in the harvest alone. The work takes someone cutting, someone bundling what is cut, someone fixing a broken machine, someone sharpening blades nobody notices until they go dull, someone cooking so the laborers can keep working, someone riding out for more hands because there are never enough. Even someone painting the farmhouse, which brings in no grain at all and is still part of the work.
Ask which job matters most and there is no answer. Different tools, different hours, different talents — but one thing every person on that farm has in common: they signed up to do the owner's work.
Feed My Sheep
That image is not new. "The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few," the Lord told his disciples (Matthew 9:37–38) — and what he told them to pray for was more workers, not more grain. After the Resurrection, on a beach, over breakfast, he asked Peter the same question three times and gave him three assignments:
"Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs... He saith unto him again the second time... Feed my sheep... He saith unto him the third time... Feed my sheep." (John 21:15–17)
Notice what Christ did not say. He did not tell Peter to go be chief Apostle. He gave him a job: feed my lambs, feed my sheep. The title came later, and it was never the point. Notice, too, who he gave it to: the man who had denied him three times only days before. That is how the Lord calls people: not after they are finished, but while they are still becoming. If you have been baptized, your own name is already on a similar list — willing to bear one another's burdens and comfort those that need it (see Mosiah 18:8–10).
What a Mission Actually Is
A full-time mission — proselyting or service, both called of the Lord, neither one a consolation prize — is one job on this farm. It is a critical job, but it is one job among many, not the whole measure of a person's worth.
Somewhere along the way, a mission call can start to feel less like a job on the farm and more like a line that decides whether a person counts as faithful. A mission is not the measure of a person's worth. Duty is real — serving the Lord is part of the promise made at baptism and the steady counsel of living prophets. But the shame sometimes attached to someone who does not go, for reasons of health, family, or timing, does not come from the Lord. Worthiness and capacity are not the same thing: worthiness is a condition, and conditions change — that is exactly what the Atonement of Jesus Christ is for. Capacity is not a verdict on anyone's soul.
What does the Lord do for those who do show up to work his field? Moses told Israel the blessing is ordinary and constant — "Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out" (Deuteronomy 28:6) — and it runs past the person doing the work: "the fruit of thy body" (Deuteronomy 28:4) means children and grandchildren who were never on the farm at all.
Ask Yourself
- Which job on that farm already looks like the way you are serving right now — this month, not someday?
- What might the Lord be building into you through something you never asked for?
This week, find a returned missionary you know and ask one question: what did your mission build in you that you never expected? Write down their answer, then add one line of your own about what you would want the Lord to build in you.
From the Church’s manuals
- Old Testament Seminary Teacher Manual (2026), “Choosing to Serve a Mission”: the Church’s lesson this one was prepared from.
This lesson is one teacher’s preparation. The Church’s manual is the place to start, and it has more than any one class can cover.