Occasionally when I’m in church or Wal-Mart or the line to register my car, I can’t help but notice that one unruly child who is challenging her or his parents minute by agonizingly long minute. They scream. They kick. They throw an all-out fit. I think to myself, this is what duct tape was made for. Just kidding. I want to say that I’m always very Christian-like and pray for the parents’ patience and sanity.  Sometimes that is true. Sometimes that is not at all what I’m thinking.

I honestly don’t remember my kids at that age being such a handful when we were in public. (Not that they weren’t. But that was before Instagram and Facebook so I can’t verify anything.) But I do remember one of them being extraordinarily slippery. That sucker could slip away in broad daylight under three search lights. Holding on to him in a store was like trying to stand up on a slip-n-slide covered in baby oil. We would blink and that little stinker would be gone. Then he would go into quiet mode. No talking or snickering or burping noises to give him away.

Once in a Wal-Mart we searched and searched. We called in the security people to help us locate him. Just when I was at my wit’s end and sank to the floor in tears, I heard his little voice, “Here I am.” He had shimmied up into the middle of one of those round displays of ladies dresses and came down only when he was ready to be found.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about those three little words. Here. I. Am.

In the Bible that phrase was used when God called to Abraham to ask him to offer his son as a sacrifice. Without hesitation Abraham answered, “Here I am.” When God called to Moses from the burning bush Moses simply replied, “Here I am.” And when Samuel was in the temple and God called, his answer was, “Here I am.”  It was a simple matter of them being ready to be found by God. They were not hiding. They were not asking God to wait a sec. They were available to God immediately when He called.

Here I am.

I want to be that kind of person. Not one who hides. But one who is willing to be found. No games. No search and rescue. No temper tantrums. No hesitation. Just a simple willingness to let God find me and use me. Right here. Right now.

Here I am.

Are you willing to be found?

When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.”
Exodus 3:4