Have you ever taken your family to a theme park? Maybe you took kids from your church, or your child’s class at school on a field trip. You get off the bus or out of the car and immediately do a head count. Periodically throughout the day, you keep taking head counts. If the number is short, you follow up with “Who’s not here?”
At church, I help greet people as they come in. I have a couple of other duties I perform as well so I sit in the back pew. Because I sit on the back pew, I know where the majority of people sit. When they are not there, I know. I see empty spaces. Sometimes, if I’m not sure who is missing I ask, who’s not here?
When a person is not where we can see them, or they are not where we think they should be, we sense that they are missing. It’s like a void, or emptiness.
In the Marines we constantly kept a count of all our people. We wanted to know where everyone was at all times. You didn’t want to leave anyone behind and if someone was missing, they could be lost or dead. There was constant accountability. Even in formations we would always count. Every single man had to be present, or accounted for.
When the count was taken, you would say “all present and accounted for.” To be accounted for, you didn’t have to be in formation, someone just had to know where you were. If you weren’t where you were supposed to be, you were “UA” or as the Army says “AWOL.” (UA= unauthorized absence, and AWOL = absent without leave).
When you get to heaven and you regroup with your family, what if one of your kids is missing? A spouse? A sibling? A parent? Do you want to say “Who’s not here?”
Think about this long and hard. What can you do today to avoid having to look for that one who is unaccounted for? Please consider this and pray about it. One day it will be too late. Don’t wait to share the gospel. Pray fervently and without ceasing. Do everything you can right now to touch everyone you can with God’s love.
My prayer is that one day you can say “all present and accounted for!”
12 “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them wanders away, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others on the hills and go out to search for the one that is lost? 13 And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he will rejoice over it more than over the ninety-nine that didn’t wander away! 14 In the same way, it is not my heavenly Father’s will that even one of these little ones should perish. –Matthew 18:12-14
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