To Save a Life

Dear Diary, 28 May 2012

To save a life...

Ever feel like there’s something so much greater that you should be doing?

Something that could drastically change another person’s life?

I mean, what are we here for anyway? To have a good time? To not screw it up? To be successful? I don’t think so. We’re here to be a light in the dark world. To represent a  greater force at work.

But how? How am I supposed to do that?

Lots of people are hurting, and many are suffering because they don’t have a wonderful a life as I do. I get frustrated with people in politics for not seeing things that I think are obious, but what if they feel the same way about me? What if I’m the one not seeing?

I have so much, and yet I get mad at people for not giving away their surplus. Well, what about mine? I do the very same thing!

Do you have a best friend? Well, have you talked to that boy who always sits alone?

What makes me angry is that this whole concept has become so cliché.

The good Christian teen hangs her head ruefully, nodding in agreement as the youth pastor rants on about being a living ministry. I’ve heard it a thousand times, and still I duck out of awkward situations. When there could be a lull in the conversation, I hightail it out of there. If I can’t think of something to say, if I’m afraid of tripping over my words (as so often I do), I just don’t go there.

Mankind has an inferiority complex.

All of us forget that we’re all in the same boat.

That perfect girl, that untouchable guy, they’ve sinned just as much as anyone else, and they need Jesus just as much as I do. So what if they think I’m a loser. If I’m not giving love away, that’s just what I am. 

Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in Him.¹

I know what it’s like to be alone.

No, I haven’t had it as bad as some, but I have felt that awful loneliness when it seems nobody really cares. 

Even now, with the wonderful friends I have, sometimes ugly thoughts sneak in, whispering doubts into my head.

What do I really have to offer?

What makes me so special?

And the most groundshaking one: The only thing good about me is Jesus…does that mean that I am worthless?

I wonder this often.

But the truth, the truth that we have a hard time understanding, is that we are all living parts of God. The magnificence of this is often taken for granted – I forget every day how special I am because of the fact. It’s not just that I was this absolutely worthless piece of trash and Jesus came in to fill me with Him and only then was I worth something. Of course, that’s also true. Bear with me. Yes, He did come in and make me beautiful, but it was also Him in me originally that drew Him to me, and I to Him.

We’re all chosen, before the creation of the world, for Him.

It’s confusing, because it seems that not choosing some people, automatically condemning some to Hell sounds atrocious; Yet 2 Peter says, “The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” That’s a whole other subject, though.

In John, Jesus tells His disciples, “Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me because I live, you also will live.”² For in Him we live and move and have our being. ³ It’s not that all of us is stripped away, is trash to Him.

He loves our hearts. 

He loves that we love Him and that we want to worship Him and be with Him.

Thinking in terms of either perfect heaven or damnable Hell…Hmmm, I’ll take the former. I don’t think that’s really what Hell is. In the Bible, it’s described as a fiery furnace, everlasting torment, yadayadayada.

But what if Hell is being dead and being forever apart from God. 

Here on earth, He is everywhere. But what if Hell is merely an absence of God’s presence. His light forever gone from us. That’s the real pain.

Think of every good thing in your life. And know that it came from God.

Imagine all of that good stripped away. Gone forever.

That’s Hell.

The Lord doesn’t look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.

Did the boy who OD’d know that? Did anyone ever tell him that he was loved for who he was?

Did that girl who sold her body ever hear that she was beautiful on the inside and her appearance didn’t matter?

Maybe somebody should tell them. Maybe I should be the one to put me aside and get in their lives.

If we both did that, you and me – for real, not just saying “yeah, that’s a good idea…” – then who knows.

Maybe we could save a life.

Verses:
1 1 John 4:16
2 John 14:19
3 Acts 17:28


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