Tag, You're It!

I hate to run.  I know that’s not a popular thing to say these days, but no amount of healthiness or trendiness will sway me.  It’s just not my thing.  Given the option in a game of freeze tag, I’d stay frozen all day.

Earlier this month, I attended summer camp with the youth from my church.  The theme for the week was “Tag, You’re It” and I could predict the correlations they’d make when it comes to hitting the ground running for God.  I was just glad we were talking about spiritual running and not physical running, even though one can be just as taxing as the other depending on the situation.

What I didn’t expect was the skit the opening night, in which the drama team leaned on another definition of the word “tag.”  They each were wearing “tags” that labeled them.  It was a school setting so there were the typical tags you’d expect: jock, nerd, goody two-shoes, class clown, outcast, etc.  Then there was another group that simply wore a label that said, “HIS.”  This group welcomed the other characters in the skit into their group with a smile. They included everyone, but removed their previous label and replaced it with one like theirs that simply read, “HIS.”

The point of the skit is that we’ve all been “tagged.”  We let ourselves be defined by our personality, our talents, our friends, our families, our jobs, our accomplishments and failures…  We carry those tags everywhere we go and often we let them drive our decisions and our every day lives, sometimes even when they don’t represent the truth.

The truth is that God has tagged those of us who follow Him as “HIS.”  This tag overrules all the others.  We should be able to not only place it on top of the other tags, but we should rip off the others and replace them with this new one.  Too often, we not only keep wearing the other tags but we use them as excuses:  

• I’m not of any use to Him because I’m _______________.   
• He’ll never forgive me for _______________.   
• If He really loved me, I wouldn’t be _______________.   
• Why would anyone else listen to me as long as I’m _______________?

We’re so quick to forget that we have ALL been tagged.  There are tags that we’d like to rip off, but there is also THE tag that not only allows us, but demands us, to rip off the others.  Satan loves to remind us of all the other tags.  But if we’ll focus on the only one that counts, we’ll be able to live our lives the way Christ intended. 

The rest of the week focused on equipping teens to hit the ground running spiritually, as I originally suspected.  Once we realize He has tagged us, there’s always a job for us to do.  We had four full days at camp, each one with a different focus: Pray.  Share.  Defend.  Lead.  Depending on who we are and where we are, we’ll be at a different place on that continuum on any given day.  But staying frozen isn’t an option once we’ve been tagged.  Action is required.  

Let us not forget.

“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: 

The old has gone, the new is here!” 

(2 Corinthians 5:17)

“For we are God’s handiwork, 

created in Christ Jesus to do good works, 

which God prepared in advance for us to do.” 

(Ephesians 2:10)