Tag! You're it!

   My son was playing Tag one Sunday after service one summer at the church I grew up in.  The kids were playing the same ole' game that we spent years ago playing while we were growing up, running and screaming on that same ole’ lawn that our feet once ran upon.  It took me back to yesterdays and remember-whens! 

   The object of the silly game that they played? Oh, you know it well. We've all played it. And when you've been "tagged"... you're it!!!!  It's your turn! 

    Watching them play that game brought a thousand thoughts to my mind ... with thousands of thoughts pondering questions began forming in my mind. I began to wonder.  And here is my biggest wonder that began to plague my thoughts that swirled inside my mind that day:

    Do you think sometimes that there's a job that needs to be done (a Jesus-kind of job,  a God-kind of work that needs working), and knowing that God often works through His people, do you think that maybe sometimes God sees that work that needs doing,  and  with the task that needs serving He taps and touches our shoulder and whispers in a voice that only we can hear, "Tag!  You're it!" He says, “You’re up. It’s your turn.”   

   Ah!  He may not say it in those words. And doubtfully will it be audible words that you'll hear.  But do you see it? When you feel that urging inside.  When you know the thing that needs to be done. When your heart is (for a moment) pulled strongly toward that need.  When you're burdened for the one that is lost in his need. 

    "Tag, you're it!" 

    Tag,  YOU are it!!!!  He says:  YOU!!!!  You're the one that God has called for the job! You’re the one He's chosen to go!   

    Jesus said that "the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few!"  The harvest is plentiful!!  But the workers to help with that job are few!  Few ... for a plentiful job!!!!!  And then He turned and told His disciples to:  "ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest field."  

    Actually, it started with Him going (as He Himself words it) "through the towns and villages, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness."   And while He was doing this He must have looked around at the masses around Him. Can you picture the eyes of His face as He's doing it? The feeling that His heart feels as He sees it?  Can you imagine what He must have been thinking?  Ah, we don't have to, for He tells us His thoughts and His thinking. We’re told, "When He saw the crowds, He had compassion on them,  because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd." 

    Have you seen someone lately that's been "harassed" and is "helpless"? Do you know someone that is? And oh my, could it be that sometimes I am the one that harassed and made the man feel "helpless" in his hope? After Jesus sees them and feels that in His heart He turns to His disciples and says,  "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few."  Can you feel His eyes as He tells them?  Can you see His concern as He shares His thought of how great the need?  Can You hear Him think:  but I have so few workers?!   Then He told those same disciples,  "Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field."  (Matt 9:35-38)

    Are you being tagged????  Is He whispering to you, because He sees with the compassion within Him the "harassed and helpless," those that are "like a sheep without a shepherd" that someone somehow somewhere needs to go to?

    Tag! You're up! You're it! You're being called! It's YOUR turn.