"My Classmate"

While visiting home, my parents were sharing with me about one of my classmates of years gone by. We weren't really that good of friends growing up but I do remember many things we did. He was a handsome guy and many admired him but he had a wild side which seemed to attract certain type of girls. He started drinking in Jr. High. By the time we hit high school, he would be drunk, sometimes at school! I couldn't believe the teachers never noticed but it was obvious to all of us.

After graduation, he went to college, only to drop out...yes, drinking cost him. He got engaged but soon afterward, she dropped him. That seemed to do it! It started a downward spiral in his life like a rock falling from the sky. He would frequent bars, get into fights and his body was having the markings of scars. He got hooked on drugs along with his alcohol. Rehab came and went. Visits to the "6th floor" at the hospital were in order. (That's the floor of those mentally unstable.) His life was completely out of control.

A picture was handed to me. It was his obituary. He looked worn and wrinkled. It was hard to believe this man was my age with the way he looked. His face was one of sadness and lostness. His life had spiraled downward so far that he lost everything in life and for eternity! He was lost in relationships and to himself and lost with the Lord. 

Too many are like my classmate. Chasing things that cost and ruining their lives in the process. Trying to find meaning while in the process of losing! We see it today. Many a young man or woman thinking that living a life of wanton pleasure, party spirit is where life is while it spirals them downward into self-pity and ruin. Here we have a gospel message for people like this yet we keep it to ourselves because of fear. Fear of offending. Fear of rejection. Fear of not saying something the right way. Yet here people are looking for some meaning in life and we withhold that life from them because of fear. Maybe we don't see the power of God that's found in that gospel (Rom. 1:16-17)? Maybe we are searching too? The Lord God is right there, found in Jesus if we would only look and get others to look.