When the World Sucks You In

I was sitting in the parking lot of a busy Best Buy when bad news reached me. I looked down at the text message and clutched my Starbucks coffee tightly. I wanted to cry, but I had already been crying for days, weeks. I couldn't bring myself to cry one more tear.

I knew the news was coming. I've always had this gift--sometimes a curse--to discern when things are getting ready to fall apart. And like a train about to crash, the news hit my heart like a ton of bricks even though I was prepared for the hit.

We make our lives day in and day out. We prune them. We grow them. We stunt them. We. We make our lives by our every day choices. That's how we build a life.

So, there I sat in the middle of a busy city I love to visit from time-to-time with a life stunted by my choices. I watched as cars passed and life moved quickly by. My world was tearing in two, but the outside world kept moving forward. And I realized that I had let the world suck me into its twisted lies. Lies that make me believe it cares deeply for me. Lies that began to crack as the truth seeped through.

I got sucked in. I was sucked into the allure of something more but was only met with pain. I was sucked into the merry-go-round that never ends. My heart felt as though it had been put through the ringer. I had abandoned my Jesus in order to cling to something temporary--something that would never last.

Then bad news hit. 

And in the middle of a busy parking lot, I watched the sun begin to descend in the distance. Jesus started calling to me. Your eyes aren't focused on me. Your heart isn't reaching for me. You've stopped pursing me. But I am still in pursuit of your heart. I'm still here. Like you, I was once human and I know that the world will lure you in every once in a while. But take heart, my arms are always ready to give you rest. 

So, I surrendered. I sat there and let the world pass by. I let the world leave me behind. Because I knew that only my Jesus could restore and revive that which was lost.

And in the middle of a terrible storm, Jesus was my peace.

The bottom line is this: When the world sucks you in, Jesus still cares for you. He still longs to be your most loyal friend and redeemer. We will make mistakes because we're human. We will pull away from Him, looking for a solid foundation we can touch with our hands, but it will crumble and disintegrate. When our worlds crumble, Heaven still stands. Heaven still stands. And this is the truth that we must write on our hearts and minds. Because at the end of our days, if we aren't building a life around Jesus, we're not building a life at all.