Another Child Is Missing                     by Carl McMurray

Lisa Irwin Bradley, 10 months old, 28 pounds, and 30 inches long went missing from her Kansas City, MO, home in the middle of the night last week. In the last thirty years about 240 infants like Lisa went missing from their homes in the middle of the night and all but around twelve were returned safely. We will hope that Lisa and her parents are some of those lucky ones, even while we are astounded every time a case like this makes the national news. Surely the most frightful thought a parent can have is that they will turn around some day and their child will be “missing.”

Perhaps we shouldn’t be astounded, however. After all, there are many, many areas in which children are “missing” today. Sometimes it is not, but sometimes it is, even with the consent of parents who have been given the responsibility to provide for, guide, teach, instruct, and love those very children. They still go missing.

They go missing from dinner tables all over this land. Sometimes we allow our children to engage in so many activities that things like dinner with the family is simply pushed out of the way. That connection time, talk time, relationship building, stay in touch time has become a thing of the past with many families, being replaced with soccer practice, band practice, ball practice, track, volleyball, etc., etc. One more opportunity to spend a few moments in face to face time with our children is replaced with the distractions of school.

Another thing of the past is a bed-time. Children, who do not have sense enough to raise themselves (that’s why they have parents who care enough for them to set rules), end up going to bed later, dragging themselves out of bed later, and missing another touchstone for the family, i.e., breakfast. Children are missing from the breakfast table as well as the best time of the day for 10 minutes of devotion consisting of a simple song, Bible reading, and prayer. Mornings are just too rushed.

And of course, with a week of distractions, hectic schedules, and no devotions to ground them, should we be surprised that many children are missing from Bible classes. And many times those that are present have their math homework, their language studies, their soccer practice caught up on...but are missing their Bible lessons. Going to bed late they are missing sleep so they are missing focus and interest as well, in those same Bible classes. Should we be surprised then that as these children grow up we find them missing from worship, missing from service, and eventually missing from the Lamb’s book of life. Yes, children are surely missing and we can’t help many of them. But some of them we can, if we would.