Tick, tick, tick

Can you hear the counter spinning out of control? It's the number of hits on this blog - well, maybe not.

My wife and I used a little down time during the Christmas break to watch a movie. We don't do that very often, and since I have been pretty well "banned" from picking out movies, she ran into town to select the flick for the evening.

"Untraceable." That was her choice. Never heard of it? I hadn't either! I am not one to give movie reviews, but there is a point, so stick with me in this as I walk you through this movie.

Untraceable is a story of a serial killer in the Portland, OR area who tortures people to death - live - through hits on his website. He is a computer genious whose father's suicide had been captured on film and broadcast over the Internet. He then went on to torture his victims, those who played a role in his father's suicide being broadcast on live TV and then the Internet by using hits on his website to hasten the execution. The movie was called "Untraceable" because the FBI and all of its experts couldn't trace the killer because of how brilliant he was in his use of the Internet.

As movies go, the FBI intelligence folks finally tracked him down and the good guys one out.

It was disturbing on so many fronts, one of which being how the world of cyberspace would continue to log-on to watch these people executed, even though they knew their mere presence would quicken the death of the victims.

A couple of days later I was in the office of a friend of mine who is a successful magazine and Internet publisher. He is always on the cutting edge and was working at that moment on a project that he is both excited to launch and also afraid to launch.

He asks:

"Have you seen the commercial - the one for the two guys who launch an Internet site? They sit there waiting for that first hit. Pretty soon there are 20 hits, a hundred hits and all of a sudden the hits just keep coming - so fast that they can't keep up with them all."

Tick, tick, tick...

I find it interesting that this conversation took place a day after watching that movie with my wife. Here we just watched the power of the Internet, used horribly the night before in this movie - and now I am having this conversation with a successful businessman who wants to provide his customers with the "tick, tick, tick" at a great pace to increase business, and yet wants to be able to handle all the hits that come along without things getting out of control.

Both examples are webmasters, so to speak. One fictitious, the other very real. They use this thing we blog on, communicate on and are entertained on to drive traffic - one for bad, the other for good.

It makes me think of God, on His throne high and lifted up - THE webmaster, if you will. Can't you see Him sitting there watching the numbers to "tick, tick, ticking" along - the numbers of those who accept him, who profess the name of his son, Jesus Christ for the first time.

I think God wants us on the streets of our communities, on the Internet, in our churches, in our workplaces telling others about Him. I think He wants us to let His light shine through us, to get his counter spinning seemingly out of control.

In Matthew 28: 18-20 he says: Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

God isn't sitting in heaven worried about being able to handle the load, to have the counter spinning out of control. He can handle that - He's God! In fact, I think it is what He wants.

I believe God wants everyone to come to Him - that not one would go uncounted! I believe He wants everyone to accept Jesus and to allow the Holy Spirit to work in everyone's life...don't you?

Isn't it humbling that He wants to include us in that work? Isn't it humbling to think that the God of heaven and earth - who created EVERYTHING including us - wants to use us in the lives of others who may not know Him? Who may not yet have chosen Him? That God wants us to go and make disciples?

Tick, tick, tick...

Who do you know or encounter that might not yet know God? I mean know Him, in his or her heart. Anyone? Are there people you encounter or run into that might be in need of a savior? May we do what we can to get them counted!