Simple Kickball

We have all went through it. Being picked for teams. In my case it was a simple kickball game.

I wasn’t the most athletic kid in the world, but I wasn’t the least either. So I was always picked some time in the middle of the “picking” process. I had gotten use to it, it wasn’t that good, but it wasn’t that bad either.

This particular day there was a new girl. She wasn’t in the best of clothes and had a lot of acne on her face. And yes, you guessed it…she was picked dead last. The look on her face was one I will never forget, and never wanted to experience myself. Thankfully she was on my team and we became friends. She wasn’t picked last again…but someone else was…

We all want to belong. We want someone to care for us. Many people walk around this old earth wandering, being different, acting like they don’t care. Independent souls who can sometimes be just plain mean. I often wonder if they were picked last on the kickball team?

We can ask Christ to give us His eyes to see people. Be ready. He will. And then we see the pain folks may have endured. We can look into their eyes and see their hurt.

I believe that we humans are often afraid of what we do not know. “The fear of the unknown” is a real emotion. It is easier to ignore someone if they are different than us. But if we peer into the life that Jesus walked on this earth we see that he never ignored those that were different. He had compassion. Look at the woman at the well, the tax collectors and sinners!

“When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, ‘Will you give me a drink?’ (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?’ (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.’ ‘Sir,’the woman said, ‘you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?’ Jesus answered, ‘Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.’  He told her, ‘Go, call your husband and come back.’ ‘I have no husband,’ she replied. Jesus said to her, ‘You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.’ ‘Sir,’ the woman said, ‘I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.’ ‘Woman,’ Jesus replied, ‘believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.’ The woman said, ‘I know that Messiah’ (called Christ) ‘is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.’ Then Jesus declared, ‘I, the one speaking to you—I am he.’” John 7:7-26

You may feel like you don’t belong…or you are an outcast. You may have been the last one chosen for the team… Well Jesus knows how you feel. He loves you without condition. You do belong!
And if you are a captain of that kickball team….draw numbers!!!!

Be blessed
IN CHRIST ALONE

Isaiah 55:8-9

*google image, NIV Bible