In my time overseas, I have seen a lot of lostness.
The type of lostness where people desperately fling an offering at a stone, the type of lostness where people give all they have in order to find hope, the type of lostness that shames people into submission, the type of lostness that entraps people in pointless tradition, the type of lostness that fills people with despair, the type of lostness that engulfs people in fear, the type of lostness that is sometimes shroud in beauty and peace-but is really anything but beautiful and peaceful.
I've seen it and I've shared it with you.
Now, as I look toward going home, a land founded on Christian principles, a land where 77% of the people identify themselves as Christians, a land where a church is found on almost every street corner, I am faced with the same thing.
Lostness.
The lostness looks different in America. People don't worship idols made from wood and stone. There aren't holidays every other day in special worship to one deity or another. There aren't small carvings of gods on the street corner that people stop and perform rituals in front of before continuing to walk down the street. People don't wear amulets, bands of rope around their arm, or the evil eye rubbed on their forehead in protection from evil spirits.
But, lostness is still in America. Those who are lost can look the same as those who are found. People worship a different type of idol--the one of self, success, and materialism. They are cloaked in a spirit of nominalism and mediocrity. They have traded in freedom for tolerance and labeled it freedom. Some walk by churches, sit in their pews, and recite the prayers. Others have forsaken all form of religion and claim there is no God. Still others have searched for peace and settled on a "form of godliness" that isn't from God at all.
The thing is, people who do not follow Jesus are just as lost in America as they are in South Asia. It isn't as striking, it isn't as stomach churning, but they are still just as lost.
I remember my first time to the Kali Temple in this city. It brought me to unstoppable tears. Will my reaction be the same when I walk through the grocery store or the school hallways and am surrounded by the lost in America?
Satan is good at what he does. He is good at veiling the truth and making us think that things are okay. It is easy to look at H.nduism and Isl@m and be struck with how lost these people are. It is harder to look at our neighbor down the road who looks just like us and be struck by how lost those people are. We've been fooled to think that those who look like they have it all together, but don't have Jesus, are any less lost.
I was reading Ann Voskamp's blog last night reflecting on her recent trip to Uganda. Some things she wrote really struck a cord with me.
"People are starved for Christ everywhere; there are poor too down our streets and down our halls and downs our pews...Radical isn’t as much about where you move – but about looking into the face of Jesus – and letting Him move you where you are. He may move you to Africa – or across the street. But if the love of Christ moves you – it will move you out into the world. He will move you to tear down gates...Because it isn’t where we love. It’s how we love. It’s who we love."
"People are starved for Christ everywhere." Everywhere people are lost and searching for Peace and Truth. I challenge myself and I challenge you, to look beyond the put-together exterior of the people in your town, on your street, in your office and see their heart. Love them with the Grace and Truth of Jesus because they are just as desperate for Jesus!
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