Wintertide Tractations: Fragile

Hello again! I've gotten behind a bit due to a trip I was blessed to take with my family.  The word for this Wintertide Tractation is Fragile. 

Start.

We just returned from a trip to Atlanta to participate in the Operation Christmas Child shoe box processing.  It was quite amazing how careful and expedient the whole undertaking is!  One of my jobs was to search the boxes for anything perishable or breakable.  No chocolate, no snacks, and no glass (among other things).  Fragility was the underlying factor.  

Life itself is fragile, isn't it?  As we traveled back today I got to talk to a cousin.  The fragility of life struck me hard as she reported that an acquaintance of her family passed away.  It was so sudden.  He had been in a car wreck some months ago, but had seemed to be doing much better...and now this.  Although they had met him before, they barely knew him, having become better friends with his brothers.  Suddenly his life is over and he didn't know my Jesus. 

I'm astonished.  I grieve.  I didn't even know the young man, but I feel like I know his family through what my cousins have said.  I cannot really take in what it means for a soul to be on the earth and suddenly drop off into eternity without knowing Jesus.

All around me this weekend in Georgia, I saw people whose faces for one reason or another caught my attention and whose need twisted my heart.  Is this a taste of what Jesus felt when Matthew reports,  "But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd"  (9:36)?  This "compassion" is an internal yearning.  There's so much need, so many hurting or uncaring, so many who are clueless about the state of their soul, about their need for the Savior Who came so that we "might have life, and that [we] might have it more abundantly" (John 10:10).  

I feel at such a loss that I crumple up inside.  What am I to do when all around me people are dying without knowing Jesus Christ and have no idea of what it means to know Him? 

The overwhelmedness I have been feeling should bring me back to the verses that follow Jesus' gaze of compassion: "Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few;  Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest" (Mat 9:37-38).  What does this mean?  It think it is in the book Radical where I encountered a deeper meaning to this passage than I had seen before.  Of these verses, David Platt writes that the need is great, but the Lord is greater.  The labourers are few, but the One Who sends out workers is in control.  Returning to Him and petitioning Him over the heart-wrenching need is exactly what I must do. 
Christian who might be reading, seek the Lord.  Plead with Him to call more workers to serve Him.  Be submissive to His direction in your life.  Don't miss what He wants to do with your fragile existence. It would give you more joy than you can comprehend!

Friend, you who have no idea what I'm talking about, life is fragile.  We come into this existence in a moment and we drop out of it just as quickly.  Are you ready for eternity?  Do you know that there is only one of two places you will go when you breathe your last breath?  One is a place of glory and beauty where one can forever be with the Lord, our Creator.  The other is a place of torment and horror where one will  forever be in pain, separated from the Lord and all comforts.  The Bible speaks of this in Luke 16:23.  Do you know that you are a sinner and worthy of punishment by our Righteous Creator?  At one point in my life, I came to realize this devastating fact.  Romans 6:23 says, "...the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."  We deserve a paycheck for the work we've done on this earth.  But our work is sin and the deserved paycheck is death.  This certainly does not sound appealing; therefore, how glorious to learn that eternal life is offered as a gift based on the work Jesus Christ did when He took the wrath of God on our behalf!  Yes, Jesus Christ paid the penalty that for any who will believe in Him, repenting of their sins.  Jesus said, "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out" (John 6:33).  Oh, friend, call out to Jesus Christ, the Son of God!  Don't wait any longer.  I would like to encourage you to read the Bible for yourself.  Let God convince you through His Word.  I would recommend beginning in the book of John, but this is just a starting place.  Read freely from the Bible and would love to hear what you learn from it!