“Not all those that wander are lost.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

“For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” - Luke 19:10

Often times as Christians we like to toss around certain words or terminology. After a few tosses, these words tend to lose meaning to us, but we continue to use it. This term of calling people “lost” is one of them. Typically by lost, we mean those who have not chosen to follow Christ; those who do don’t share the faith.

My question is this, do we treat the “lost” like they are truly lost? I mean, if they are lost, and we find them, shouldn’t we be more excited? We run into lost folks ever day. Does the faith within us beg to get out? Do we see the lost not merely as people outside the walls of our faith, but merely brothers and sisters who should be inside with us?

So two thoughts to ponder:

1) if they’re lost, why do we tend to make them feel unwanted

2) just because they’re lost to the faith doesn’t mean they don’t have a clue where and why they’re where they are at.

As you walk through your day today, look around and notice the people you come in contact with. Really think about the way you look at them. Do you look at people the way that Christ did? I know I don’t always do that. I want to change. Anyone with me?

What is that thing that makes you run? Or shut down. Or rage. You know that feeling, when everything is going well and then it hits. And the rest of your day is in a landslide. It’s not you anymore in the drivers seat. It’s fight or flight mode or maybe lights out.
You may wake up and shake it off hours later, or a week. Reality has escaped you, you’ve been in a spin. Then you struggle to get back to normalcy.

It’s amazing how the enemy hits you. Those personalized self guided missiles made just for you. It knows just where those crack are. Those personal wounds that only you own. It steals our joy. Robs our vision. And leaves us doubting ourselves or cleaning up the mess we’ve made.

Didn’t we see it coming? Why do we never see it coming?

Why don’t we realize it’s an attack? How do we go blind so fast?

Life wasn’t meant to be a series of patterns or cycles… it was meant to be a journey. Are we stumbling towards glory or are we just walking in circles.

Keeping our heart central and our vision clear is what is important. If we lose that in the course of the day, we’re toast. If busyness blinds us what are we to do?

We can’t forget who we are. Our identity is central, if we lose that we’ve lost everything.

Any thoughts on politics?

I think that if we’re really followers of Christ, we should be a restless bunch. Searchers. Seekers. Explorers. We should always be striving to follow after the wildness of Christ. Are we meant to be stable or stagnant? Hardly. It’s a journey that we’ll never fully arrive on, but one in which we must keep moving. We have to keep moving. Our soul depends on it.

I was working today and listening to the radio (www.pandora.com) and heard an old song by U2 - I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For. It really spoke to those restless places in my heart. So how many of you are searchers and seekers? How many are burdened by the feeling that ‘there’s more.’ I love the fact that the Gospel is too big to live in our hearts and constantly forcing us to search and seek and live bigger. Let us not settle. Let us keep exploring.

I have climbed highest mountains
I have run through the fields
Only to be with you
Only to be with you
I have run
I have crawled
I have scaled these city walls
These city walls
Only to be with you

But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for

I have kissed honey lips
Felt the healing fingertips
It burned like a fire
This burning desire

I have spoke with the eternal angels
I have held the hand of a devil
It was warm in the night
I was cold as a stone

But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for

I believe in the Kingdom Come
When all the colors will bleed into one
Bleed into one
Well, yes I’m still running

You broke the bonds
And you loosened the chains
Carried the cross
Of all my shame
all my shame
You know I believe it

But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for

This is in response to a blog I wrote last week about living the Kingdom life. While that is all true, the analogy isn’t complete. So I’m here to add another story.

There is an idea that exists; a grand sweeping idea that lives, moves, and breathes. It has the power to give life and take it. It possesses the hope of something more. Then there is us. We are a people living without a home. We are strangers and aliens in a land foreign to us. Because we don’t belong, the world around us hates us. But we live with the idea buried deep within our hearts. The idea gives us a hope that we have a home somewhere. We know it exists, but only within our hearts. It has the power to change us and those around us; even those that hate us – especially those that hate us!

The idea that I speak of is Christ. He was much, much more than simply a man. He was also a divine being that loved us beyond anything we can comprehend. This idea, this love, is what is meant to fuel us as Christians. But something has been lost.

“The weakness of so many modern Christians is that they feel too much at home in the world. In their effort to achieve restful “adjustment” to unregenerate society they have lost their pilgrim character and become an essential part of the very moral order against which they are sent to protest. The world recognizes them and accepts them for what they are. And this is the saddest thing that can be said about them. They are not lonely, but neither are they saints.”

AW Tozer

We are apart of a Kingdom, yes, but we are pilgrims who are living far from our home. We must not lose our identity and become something we are not. But we are also not called to shrink away and hide. We are called to missional living.

“Jesus comes with saving love for the world. He creates the church as a missional community to join Him in His mission of saving the world. He invites me to be part of the community to experience His saving love and participate in it.”

Brian McLaren

We are meant to live open (Missional) and yet also closed existences (Kingdom). Just as Christ was both man and God, we must remember that we are called to be both Missional (man) and Kingdom (God) minded. At times they may seem to contradict each other, but it is that tension that keeps us in check.

Wikipedia [in describing Missional livng] puts it best, “All believers are missionaries who are sent to be a blessing to the culture around them through a lifestyle that mimics God’s kingdom here on earth.”