There is perhaps no better place for “people watching” than an international airport.  Folks from all around the country (and the world!) are cycling through these hubs.  I happened to be in four different airports in the past week, and I saw thousands of people in the process.

People are fascinating.  Everything about people is fascinating!  We are all unique with our own talents, experiences and perspectives.  In an airport, a person only interacts with a few others and learns perhaps a little about their stories.  But the outward differences are obvious!

Of course, there are the clear ones: male or female; taller or shorter; thinner or heavier; older or younger; traveling together or alone; business or casual; skin color, hair color, and such.  There is a vast array of all the aforementioned.

But the really interesting things, at least to me, are the personal choices.  How does a person choose to be seen?

Some opt for style while others opt for comfort.  Still others will strive for a blend of the two.  Those traveling for business will dress the part, wearing tailored suits or professional skirts or slacks.  Others gravitate toward trendy, sporting the latest accoutrements. 

Often the choice made is to represent a favorite sports team with hats, coats, jerseys, tee-shirts, sweatshirts, or even entire sweatsuits.  In Chicago, I must have been in a concourse where a plane from Dallas disembarked the day after the Packer game in Texas.  Every other person seemed to be wearing Packer’s gear, (much to my dismay!). 

Sometimes people rep a company … whether the company worked for or a “brand name” designer one.  The pilots and stewards and stewardesses are bedecked in their airline’s uniforms with their varied colors and styles.  Airport workers – whether security, cleaning personnel, or restaurant or store employees – are dressed for their positions.

The colors seen in an airport are catching as well.  Every hue on the spectrum makes an appearance in the suits, slacks, shirts, shoes, blouses, dresses, coats, hats … and even hair.  A carousel of color rotates through the concourses.

And, oh my, the accessories!  From heavy chains to huge crosses dangling from necklaces to oversized, gaudy eyeglasses to valuable rings and earrings – all are sighted.

Not to mention the variety of shoes.  I am astounded at what some people choose to put on their feet when knowing they will be trekking long distances in airports and going airborne in airplanes!  High heels.  Clogs.  Crocs.  Sandals.  “Five-fingered” shoes.  Cowboy boots.  You name it, it’s on somebody’s feet.

And we haven’t even discussed the luggage differences, or how some decide to wear fifteen layers and carry a stuffed animal (like the woman next to me on one of my connecting flights) and others opt to go minimalistic, wearing just a single layer.

Such a visual smorgasbord!  So many varied choices made!  So many differences! 

Yet every single person … regardless of their age or gender, or how they look, or what they are wearing, or the colors they are displaying, or their multitudinous differences … every single person has one thing in common. 

They have a soul that will spend eternity in one place or another – heaven or hell.  (Daniel 12:2-3, Matthew 25:46, John 3:36)

Thanks be to God, Jesus died for all!  But tragically not everyone knows it or believes it.  A striking contrast between the two perspectives (belief and unbelief) and the two destinations (heaven and hell) is shared by Jesus in his description of a beggar named Lazarus and an unnamed rich man. (Luke 16:19-31). 

So many people!  So few believers!  So much work for you and me to do!  And no, it’s not only the preachers’ job to do.  Not just other Christians’ responsibility.  It’s ours.  Yours and mine!

“For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all … God reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us” (2 Cor. 5:14, 18-20).

The next time you are in an airport (or the mall, a concert, or anywhere there happens to be lots of people), consider how very different we all are … and yet how fundamentally the same.  One soul in every person; two potential destinations.  And consider how important it is that we somehow reach as many as we can with the message of a Savior who loves them.  Because he does, regardless of how they look!