Where Are You?

This question goes out to all my young people out there. Where are you? I don’t mean ‘why don’t you come to church or show up for online services?’ (#quarantine2020!) And I don’t mean ‘why don’t you participate and show up for events?’ Events and services are amazing tools of fellowship and growth in this Christian walk, but those are secondary to what I’m speaking about. I want to know where are you spiritually? Mentally? Where is your heart? Where are YOU?

These days young people seem to have an indifference and an absence of heart and mind when it comes to the presence of God. GOD IS PRESENT, BUT ARE WE? Even when we are in the “pews”, present in body; we are not present in spirit. Where have the young people gone? Where is the zeal, the eagerness, the fervor? There’s always a point in the start of every Christian walk where the thought of being in God’s presence excited us! There was a yearning and a wanting that indescribably filled us! We felt whole. We need to find our first love again. We need to dig our way out of this deep (deep) hole of surface level Christianity that we have found ourselves in and experience the TRUE presence of God—like we did in the beginning. Think back to your personal beginning… don’t you miss it?

Listen, it’s not going to be easy, but it’s not impossible! God always creates a way. If we would but shift our gaze away from all of the superficial things of this world (it’s a trick!), and bring it back to where we were made to belong, then we wouldn’t feel so far away from our creator. We wouldn’t feel secretly ashamed, embarrassed, like its too late, like He could never love us as much as He loves and blesses “so and so”—we wouldn’t feel like the prodigal son. But that parable is in the Word of God for a reason! We are all that prodigal son at some point in our walk, but GLORY BE TO GOD because He is always there to welcome us back! No judgement, no condemnation. JUST LOVE.

To us, it shouldn’t make sense for God to be so faithful until you are the one who needs Him to welcome you back with open arms. But to our God, it’s the only thing that makes sense. Like I said, we may be in the church, watching the online services and singing the songs but are we actively searching for God’s heart, because guess what? — He is actively searching for ours. FOR YOURS. He is searching for YOU. So, when you hear Him call out asking “Where are you?” Don’t let anything stop you from saying… “Here I am, God.”

“‘And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’”

Luke 15:5-6

“‘For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found’”

Luke 15:24