When I was younger, I can’t count how many times I got lost or separated from my parents at an event and always found my way home. But even now, sitting here at the age of 26 at home, I still feel lost…
We frequently see people in movies get lost but there is always a reason. There’s a lesson learned and sometimes there’s an epic, life changing moment that’s shared before the person is found or finds their way home. Never during any of the movies does someone stay lost. But in the heat of the moment, everything seems hopeless and the fear of never finding your way home is paralyzing. It’s no big surprise that the fear of getting lost holds people back from taking chances at all. Recently, I have been feeling lost in a place that can only be described as an emotional and spiritual rock bottom. I have no idea who I am, where I am, or if my life will amount to anything more than constantly feeling lost, confused and disappointed.
Part of me is both afraid and excited to be lost. While being lost is incredibly terrifying, it’s also a time to find out how strong I really am. Being lost is an opportunity to find my way home and practice my strength, sense of life direction and the ability to overcome anything that comes my way. Maybe when we don’t know where we are, we are not “lost,” so much as we are just on our way home.
Recently when listening to a sermon by Jonathan Pokluda, the Young Adults Minister at Watermark, he stated that “the age of anxiety is upon us.” As people live longer and diseases increase we become more and more stressed out. A recent study showed that 40 million Americans are clinically diagnosed with anxiety. It is the #1 mental illness. Sure, everyone worries about things; but why? I think when we focus on how fragile our lives are or how temporary our lives are it scares us. Anxiety though is a bad kind of fear because it robs us of life. But God tells us in Matthew 6:25 – “Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?”
So what makes us anxious? Our idols make us anxious – those things which we place our hope in; those things we are concerned about. Anxiety comes when we make too much of ourselves and I am guilty of this all the time! There is more to life than this… Non-believers worry, not Christians. Fear, worry and anxiety scream that there is no God.
So I ask myself over and over, am I lost or just waiting on God to do something miraculous with my life? Just the other day I heard that “faith is believing that what I have is what God knows I need.” I’ve heard statements like this before but I never REALLY heard them. James MacDonald stated, “Fear expresses the opposite of all that Christianity is to be. Fear is the contradiction of faith. Faith says, ‘Whatever it is, it’ll be okay because of God.’ Fear says, it’s not going to be okay, and doesn’t think much about God at all. God seldom seems further from you than when your heart is filled with fear. Fear is relying completely on your own resources and realizing suddenly that they aren’t nearly enough to sustain you. Fear has no place in the life of a Christian. A fearful response, as in an anxious frightened reaction, is never good and never from God.” So how do we overcome anxiety as believers? We have to change our mind and our attitude. We can’t be anxious; we have to be grateful and pray!
Looking back on my anxiety and thinking about what has been my idol these past 5 months, I’ve found that it’s really been control. I have been anxious about being in control since quitting my job in January. We can’t always see what God wants to do because we are so busy driving or trying to drive our own lives. God is going to do what He’s going to do regardless of our plans. So I have to give the wheel back to Christ because when we trust in God we will be blessed.
I realized that I’ve just been going through the motions in a simulated Christianity for who knows how long. I haven’t really been “in the game.” But at the same time, it isn’t a game – it’s Heaven or Hell and it’s dangerous. Every single person I encounter on a daily basis has an eternal destiny! I have to keep that in perspective as I walk through life – my own life included. What I want in life doesn’t matter and what I want will define my greatest joys and my greatest disappointments. When I have the thought of wanting to be married, then I hope I’ll get married, but then if I don’t get married or a relationship ends, I face disappointment. I am my biggest interference from God right now. The opposite of loving God is loving myself and the opposite of living for God is living for my comfort. I want to feel good and be in control, but it shouldn’t matter if I am uncomfortable in this life because my main desire should be God! The second I am uncomfortable or not in control, my life gets flipped upside down – just as it has for a while now. I have to keep Psalm 37:4 in perspective – “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.”
My faith has been lukewarm and I haven’t been shining for God – I’ve been complaining about not getting a job or not liking my body and when I complain, all I do is reject God. Christianity isn’t something I can just tag onto my life – it IS my life! So is Jesus enough for me? He IS if I’ll let Him. The lukewarm Christianity has been wearing me out because I have had one foot in church and the other in the world and I’ve been staying beat up because of it.
My life should be consistent with Christ’s character not in order to be saved, but because I am saved! In doing this, I will stand apart from the world like a star against a dark night. What I hope in is what I invest in…a relationship, a job, a desire to be something I’m not or a house. When compared to Christ NOTHING ELSE MATTERS – it’s not a question but a statement I should live by and anything that I own right now that I can’t give away owns me – 1 John 3:17.
So why did I write about all of the struggles and thoughts going on in my head right now? While I may still be young and naïve at times, I believe that life is worth everything! It’s not about having a relationship, companionship, good friends or a job that I love, but about Christ and my relationship with Him! Life is more than spending hours in the gym and eating carrot and celery sticks just to seek approval from others. It’s more than merely pursuing the norms of society or chasing dreams to be superior over others. It’s more about long walks drowned prayer or in thoughts of Christ or using my time to help others. I only get to walk this road once so I want to make the most of it while living for Christ instead of staying lost or waiting on the perfect conditions because if I do, I’ll spend my life doing just that….waiting.
