Lost in the city

I stepped out of Penn subway station in New York City and I must admit I was speechless. I wasn’t expecting to be impressed by yet another large city but this was unlike anything I had ever seen before. The first thing I noticed is how dwarfed I was by the monstrous skyscrapers everywhere around me. The lights were blinding. It was nighttime but it might as well have been 3 in the afternoon. The traffic was bumper to bumper, taxis were attempting to scare bold tourists as they honked and accelerated as the light turned green, and the street vendors shouted their prices in various languages at the crowds of people who swept me along the sidewalk. There’s no time for gawking along Broadway Avenue on a Saturday night. It is an experience. It is one of those moments when you fully realize what a HUGE and diverse world we live in… Millions of people each with their own unique story, purpose, and life. And all of these people have the opportunity to intertwine their stories in this mass chaos of disorder called New York City. The capability to get lost in the crowd is so strong it makes me wonder how many souls there are wandering around to be just that…lost. It would be easy to be invisible in that city…invisible to all of us except God. I smiled as I thought about how God was just as present with our group in NYC as He was when we were in small town Wyoming. As I was feeling lost amongst the craziness on Times Square, the lyrics to my favorite Shawn McDonald song popped into my head:

“Here I am tonight, with my arms open wide, won’t you come inside? Come and fill this heart of mine. I need your love. Won’t you lead me? I cannot do it on my own, I cannot do it all alone. I lay myself at your feet asking you won’t you lead me, God?”

I wonder how many of those hundreds of people were praying the same thing in the big city that night…

Kelly