Have you ever been lost? I don’t mean inconvenienced or temporarily disoriented - I mean really lost. Turned around, completely confused, scared to death and about to cry kind of lost?
There are few things that frighten us quite like not knowing where we are. No familiar places . . . no familiar faces. Nothing to give us a reference point . . . nothing to help us orient ourselves and find out what direction we should be going.
Some of us suffer this condition in our general life course. Where am I going... what am I doing... what’s my purpose in life? What’s amazing about this condition... we often just accept it and learn to live with it.
There is another kind of lostness, though, that should frighten us even more - spiritual lostness. It’s not that you don’t know where you are. With this kind of lostness, you don’t have any idea where you’re going.
You have no home to go to, you have no direction to strive for. Like a homeless person on the streets of an urban city, you wander your own spiritual streets, and “lostness” becomes not just a temporary state of affairs . . . “spiritual lostness” becomes characteristic of every day of your life.
You get used to being turned around and confused and scared. You get used to there being no reference point . . . no principles to help you orient yourself and give yourself some direction and purpose.
The Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ knew a lot about the lostness of humanity. Jesus recognized that every human being who ever lived was lost, without hope and without God in this world (Eph 2:12).
Finding a point of reference that will help you orient yourself and gather your bearings is not something you can do yourself. You need help. People who have been found, those who have discovered a purpose and direction for their lives, have done so not by their own merit or hard work but by confessing their lostness to God and turning the wheel of their lives over to him.
When all is said and done, the only difference between the man in the pew and the man in the street is that one is a lost person who has been found and the other is still out wandering the streets of life looking for something to point him in the right direction.
Finding your “TRUE NORTH” as a trusted and reliable point of reference for life navigation can be a big challenge in today’s world. Jesus is that compass and following Him is your true north. However, finding the real and true Jesus is more challenging than you might think. You might say, not all compasses point to north. That is true. There seems to be more than enough magnetic like interference in life that tugs and pulls you off track, away from the reliable and trustworthy Jesus.
Magnetic interference can ruin a compass, rendering it useless for navigation. Just like magnetic interference, SIN following false doctrines and the religious traditions of men, even though they seem biblical and true, can knock you off course. Trusting in those who project a form of righteousness, but lack humility and a self-serving heart for their fellow man can knock you of course.
Simple exercise: go outside and with your eyes closed, turn until you find “north" and stop. Try it and see how close you come to facing true north. Then do it again, only this time with a compass in hand and see how close you come to true north.
Following Jesus Christ, our point of reference for life, begins with seeing the CROSS as we gaze across the varied landscapes of our life experiences. No matter which direction you turn and stop, the cross must always be in your line of vision. It must loom larger than anything else you see on the horizons of your life.
All your decisions and choices, everything you desire and plan, the CROSS must always be visible in your minds eye. That’s your TRUE NORTH in a Cross-Centered life lived in harmony with Jesus Christ.
