Lost and Found

We live in this world and are looking and searching for meaning and purpose, and many of us are still looking for their fulfillment.  Many are looking and yet feeling lost in the shuffle as we contemplate the meaning of life.  It is drudgery at best for most of us, with many fleeting moments of passing victories, and then with emptiness setting back in.  And then the search continues, but through all the toil the seeker still feels lost.

Many of us are looking to find our place in the world, yet we suppress our true condition.  We may pridefully proclaim, “I’m not lost.  I’m just looking to find myself.”  When all the time, deep down, out of the depths of our souls, our consciences proclaim, “I am so lost.”  That was me.  I was certainly lost, but did not want to admit it, especially with my huge pride.

We seek to satisfy ourselves through the accumulation of our possessions, the fulfillment of our pleasures, and through pride in our own purpose.  Yet, with all this we are left unsettled, empty, and dissatisfied.  What could be missing?

Along the road of seeking happiness we may have felt hindered, hurt, and even hopeless, especially with the choices we have made.  We try filling the emptiness with more and more of our pursuits of what we think are good, or with others to dull the pain.  Among some of the choices we have made along the way, came regret, and we may seek to right the wrongs in our lives, yet with no lasting peace.

We seek for solutions as we go about our lives, maybe with self-help, relationships, religion, or philosophies, but are not truly content with what we find.  That was me, in some measure, in one direction, and then another.  Life was my playground, and all about me.  I sought my own happiness in pleasure; a life of hedonism.  What could be more satisfying than a life of pleasure?  Wasn’t life just chasing after it, or one big show?  Wasn’t it all about me?

But that life left me empty.  I tried to belong here, and then there, or do this, and then that, but never seemed to fit in just right, even when among those closest to me.  What I considered good to me, became like an insatiable vacuum, as though never being able to quench the thirst that was there.  There was the feeling as though I kept seeking to clean up my own messes from the bad choices I made, and then brush them under the rug, in some way.  If no one sees it, did it really happen?  Though I did not want to admit it, to anyone or myself, I was lost.

All my hopes and dreams never delivered me, or brought lasting joy.  Although an irreligious man, in my mid-thirties, I started reading the Bible.  What could this ancient book bring me?  Yet through the reading of it, I found that all I have ever needed was in the universal gospel message, meaning good news, of Jesus.  He is seeking the lost and finding them, even this day, filling the emptiness, removing the despair, granting forgiveness, and bringing great hope and abundant life.  This book may speak to you, through the gospel in each chapter, uniquely.  May you find, as I did, that the living Savior, who knows you better than you know yourself, is daily seeking and saving the lost.  He is the One who found me, and who, for generations and all over the world, sets people free!  I pray that as you read this book, he would reveal himself to you, and that you would find your true identity in him.  May God grant you transformation, and a whole new life full of his joy and peace.  May there be rejoicing in heaven over you, and may he do for you, as he did for me. 

With love in Christ,

Ramzy