Childhood Memories of Being Lost
“No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.” John 6:44
I grew up in the country. We lived so far out in the sticks, you had to pump in the sunshine. So, needless to say I played quite a bit, as a child, in the woods and creeks. I was never alone either. I was always with my cousin, Greg, and/or my brother, Chad. We had a lot of fun playing across the hills and bottoms around our house.
One day the three of us went exploring. We went out in the woods and hiked along a creek with our BB gun. We were real deer slayers in our minds. We stayed gone most of the afternoon. Of course after several hours together, we were growing tired and a little irritable towards each other. Since we were older, Greg and I made Chad carry the gun. Big mistake. Chad finally got fed up with us picking on him and decided to use that BB gun. He took a few shots at us and of course we ran. Chad chased us. None of us paid any attention of where we were running. We were all ignorant of our situation. We thought we knew exactly where we were but in all actuality, we were lost. The only reason we finally realized this was, as it grew dark, my parents began hollering at us from the house to come home. We heard their calls but we had no idea which way to go. the only way we finally made it home was because they continued to call us and we followed their voices. If they had never called it probably would have gotten dark before we would have realized our lost state.
It is no different for us in our spiritual lives. We as people, are so sinful naturally, that unless God calls us, we would never realize our lost state. While we are lost, we are basically walking around in spiritual darkness. If you have ever played in the dark, you know there are times where you could be walking straight into something and never realize it until the light is turned on. God is that light. His voice is that switch. If God never calls, we never would be saved. Why? Because we never would realize our need. There is no telling how many hours me and the guys were actually lost that day. Thankfully, my parents brought it to our attention.
So what is it like when God calls us? We can’t actually physically hear Him. How do we know when He has called us? When you recognize you sin. When you realize that you are doing wrong. I’ve compared it to a mirror in past blogs. If you never looked in a mirror, you would never recognize the need to comb your hair. You would never know you had a huge pimple on the end of your nose. You would think in your mind that everything was perfect. We have all walked around with something on our face and didn’t know it. Once we finally realized it, we were a little embarrassed. You might even go to a friend and say, “Why didn’t you tell me I had that on my face?”. We would want to know. Shouldn’t we also want to know that we are spiritually lost? God is not pointing this out to be mean or to point out our flaws. He does it because He loves us and wants everyone to be saved and spend eternity with Him. Listen for Him. And when you hear Him, run to Him. He will run to you, accepting you with open arms.