Are You Listening to the Crowd?

Hey everybody! Hope you are having a fantastic day. If you aren’t, then cheer up! Only one more day until the weekend! And today you get a hand written message straight from the Man Himself. And by the Man, I do indeed mean God, not me. So, here you go. I’m going to start this post out with a story.

 Recently I attended a Kansas concert at the Cobb Energy Centre. After the concert, Kansas announced that they would be signing merchandise if it was something purchased at the souvenir booth. As you can imagine, this created a very large crowd around the booth and caused the line to go on forever. My dad and I were relatively close to the front, but we had to wait for the band to make their way off of the stage and out to the signing table. While we were waiting, I noticed a little, slightly older woman wondering around as if she were looking for something. I didn’t pay much attention to her at the time, though I did notice her walking through quite a few times. At one point, about 10 minutes after the concert ended and the line formed, the woman stopped walking and just kind of stood off to the side for a minute. Then, all the sudden, I heard a loud whistle. After a few seconds of trying to find the source, there was another whistle. I looked over to see that the woman was trying to get everyone’s attention. When the crowd had silenced, she explained to everyone that she was looking for a little boy. She explained what he was wearing and where she had last seen him. Someone in the crowd asked his name, she said Chase. So everyone in the crowd started calling for Chase. After a couple of minutes, someone started shouting “HERE HE IS, RIGHT HERE.” The crowd parted to reveal that Chase had been right in from of the woman the whole time; he had just gotten covered up in the crowd. All it took was for the people near him to realize that he wasn’t where he needed to be.

                Sometimes we are like Chase. We have gotten lost in a crowd of people without realizing that we are lost at all. And God is, in a way, like the woman. He may be looking and looking for a way to get to you and get your attention, but you just don’t realize that He is trying. And He may be right there, but you still just don’t see Him. Sometimes God uses the people around you to give you that nudge, to tell you that you need to get back on track, or to tell you to find him again. Or He may be calling you to be like the person in the crowd. Maybe God is calling you to say to someone, close or not, that they aren’t following God anymore and they need to look at where they have gotten to. Or maybe you are like the woman. You know that you are missing something, but you just don’t know where to look. You can see that something is wrong; you just can’t find a way to fix it. Sometimes you might just need to call on the crowd to help you find what you need. And He is just in front of you, like Chase was; it’s just that you don’t know how to see Him. You are looking at the wrong angle, or looking at the crowd instead of Him. If any of these situations are you, speak up. Tell that friend that they need to come to church. Ask a friend if they think something is wrong. Or if you know something is wrong, but you can’t seem to find God, talk to someone who knows Him. They are all over the place, and they would all be happy to help you.

                That’s all for today, I suppose. But think about where you might fit into the story and act on it. You may be surprised at where it can take you.