Norah's fall colors...

Getting Lost

Last weekend I was in Chicago for a Young Life camp at a hotel on Michigan Avenue and it was an awesome experience. I’ve never really been to many big cities and I’ve definitely never been downtown in a big city by myself. On Saturday morning, I decided to get out by myself and take a walk. This seemed like a simple enough thing to do and with all of the huge buildings as landmarks, I figured I would never get lost; but then again I am from a small town in Tennessee where our biggest building is only slightly larger than the Wal-Mart…

After taking in a ton of amazing sights and making more than a couple of twists and turns, I looked down at my watch and realized that I had a little over 18 minutes to be back at my hotel and in club with the rest of the Young Life folks. There was only one problem… I had been walking aimlessly for over an hour and had absolutely no idea where I was! I did an about-face and started booking it down the streets of downtown Chicago in a mad fury. Most people ignored me while a few people looked at me as if I was totally insane (which was not far from the truth) and my only consolation was that I felt like I was in a movie… Eventually, off in the distance, I saw the backside of a building I recognized as the Chicago Symphony and I just kept my eyes on that one structure until I made it back to Michigan avenue… I finally arrived at club exhausted and out of breath and no one had even missed me… it was my own private disaster luckily averted by a poster of Yo-Yo Ma.

When you try to live life walking with Christ, it is easy to feel lost. It is easy to look at your life, your achievements, ambitions, goals and motivations and feel like, “Is this worth anything? Is this it? Do I matter?” In fact, I don’t think I really know anyone who serves Christ who hasn’t dealt with insecurity and self-doubt. What I’m coming to realize is that getting lost in serving Jesus is not so much a problem with a person’s abilities or results, but rather a thinking problem. When we are thinking about our ministry and wind up feeling lost, it’s because we’re not thinking about the right thing. Hebrews 3:1 says “Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess.”

Our thoughts about our ministry need to be focused on Jesus rather than on our ministry. The writer of Hebrews says that we need to think about Jesus as our apostle and high priest. Apostle means “sent one” and the high priest is the one who speaks for the people… the one who stands in our place. When I feel inadequate, invisible unimportant and insignificant, what I need to be thinking about is that Jesus was sent for me and if I had been the only person on earth, He still would have come for me. I need to be thinking about how Jesus speaks for me… that He loves me, sees me and stands up for me even if no one else does. If my thoughts are on Him, the One who came for me and the One who speaks for me, I’ll never get lost in serving Him because even if His smile is all I ever get, it’s all I ever wanted in the first place.