People are lost everywhere you look. They are desperate for love and opportunity, and some of them will go to any length to get attention. They confuse acquisitions with fulfillment and good times with real joy. People hurt in a hundred different ways, and they seek a hundred different remedies, just as I did for decades. In the end, at least for me, God was the answer, and I am writing this to encourage you to choose God yourself.
People are hurting in so many ways. Many of them are victims of circumstance. The man is 57 and he's been fired. "Downsized" they say, but in his gut, he feels that he's been fired. The woman is 43 and she's knee-deep in a bad marriage. She hates to go home at night and often wonders why she didn't listen to her gut (and her dad) in the first place. The boy's 17 and he has very few friends. He gets bullied and he wonders if it's worth it. He's sure that no one loves him, and he suspects that he is unlovable. The girl is about the same age, and she always feels ugly. The businessman wear a thousand dollar suit to hide his cheap values and to conceal his emptiness. And then there's an old man. He's been treading water ever since he lost the love of his life. Oh, she's still breathing, but she hasn't known him in years and it breaks his heart! There are many other people who are enslaved by their own secrets- domestic violence, sexual abuse, and perhaps, grave sins that they committed in the past. The brokenhearted, the "hopelost"- they are legion- and we cry for them. They are not at fault, but they still need a healer.
Others are responsible, at least in part, for being lost. They've fallen in love with one of the lesser gods who called their name. They've chased after the whores of money, power, pleasure. They are running with all their might- on a treadmill to nowhere- and while they think they're climbing the ladder of success, they are actually going in circles. They are in love with things that can neither think nor feel, and we shake our heads when we think of them. Still others, of course, have fallen in the hands of a demon named addiction. They've lost their souls and they no longer see things as they really are. If they're lucky, the will hit bottom, and if they're really lucky, the impact will shatter their illusions and rearrange their value systems entirely. These people played a part in their own sicknesses, but they are also "hopelost," and they need a healer.
In Biblical terms, people are "lost." They are alienated from their Creator, their neighbors, and their own best selves. They live with an emptiness that no amount of money can fill. They may have large corner lots and big corner offices. They may have a 1000 Facebook friends and several club memberships, but they fill incomplete because God is not at the center of their lives. I know this because I've been there, and I've learned that God is the ONLY enduring source of unconditional love. I've also learned that God is the ONLY source of complete and utter forgiveness. Even as Adam was created to be in relationship with God, Augustine noted that our hearts are restless until they rest in God.
He came to this conclusion after he had tried to fill his life in many other ways, and I've had the same experience. After trying so hard to be loved for so long, knowing that I am known and loved anyway still blows my mind, and after carrying my sins for so many years, knowing that God has forgiven them gives me incredible joy. If you put God first in your life, you will still face challenges. You will still hear the tempting voices of the world, and you may even find yourself in counseling for the addictions, the secrets, and the pain that I mentioned earlier. But I can promise that you will never feel unloved and that your days of trying to be "good enough" will be over. What is more- if God is at the center of your life, you will find purpose and direction.
For me- who had never believed that I was really worthy, and who sometimes cried out, "God, please help me,"- receiving God's grace was the key that unlocked the cage that I was living in. I hit bottom in 1976, and I hit with such a "thud" that it knocked some sense into me. For once, I listen when someone talked to me about God. I listened, I believed, and I accepted the new life that God offered to me. My emptiness was gone, and I saw things clearly for the first time in my life. If I found new life in Christ, anyone can... including you.
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