"Get Lost!"

For those of you who are reading this that are younger, you may not relate too well to the beginning of this post. You see, today's generation has a different concept of "playing" than we did when I was a kid. We did not have computers and computerized games or 24-hour television. Playtime to us actually meant getting up, going outside and physically doing something. Our games seldom came from a store but were a product of our imaginations. It involved a lot of running and physical activity. Believe it or not, our parents were not afraid to let us be gone from their site and we would be blocks away, maybe even miles away, and we did not have a cell phone for them to get in touch with us. It was a different time and way of life. Most of us had our "gang" that we hung with, but "the gang" then was not a bunch of thugs or hoodlums, it was just a group that typically ran together and played together from around the neighborhood or school. It was also a common thing that there was someone (maybe more) in the neighborhood that no one wanted to play with. Often times there was no real reason, just they were that one person that was excluded. In my neighborhood, it happened to be a boy named Ricky. None of us liked Ricky. He was mean, foul-mouthed and loved to fight, so we avoided him.

Anyway...

I can remember times when we'd all be playing around and someone would spot Ricky coming across the field or down the road and whoever saw him would shout, "It's Ricky! Everyone get lost!" Instantly we'd all scatter and run in different directions so that Ricky would not be able to play with us, and we would meet at "our secret place" which happened to be down on what we called "Buttermilk Road" where there was a little ravine where the creek ran through. It was all a part of our play; getting lost so that those we did not want to involved in our lives would be excluded.

I've been thinking a lot the last few days about my youth and I kept coming back to those times we'd run from Ricky in that practice that we called "getting lost." This morning I was just sitting and thinking about all this again and a thought crossed my mind, and I wanted to share it here on my blog. It's really a simple thought, but one that is so worth sharing.

Here it is:

It is time that our "gang," the Body of Christ start using the practice of getting lost.
What I mean is, we need to be keeping an eye out for the one we don't want intruding in our lives, the evil one, and when he is spotted, shout the alarm so that everyone can run. The Bible tells us to flee from evil, from Satan, but the church, by and large, has let him infiltrate the "gang" and he has a pronounced impact in our lives. We need to run when we see him coming and go back to our secret place (the presence of God) where we regroup, rest and prepare to go back out into the world.

There is a two-fold meaning in this. Getting Lost can be:
1) getting lost from Satan, and
2) Getting Lost in God.

There is a secret place in the presence of God, and we need to regularly allow ourselves to "get lost" in God. There in his presence, we are safe from the influence of the outsider and we find rest and strength to go out again. When you get lost in Christ, you become oblivious to what is happening around you.
Act 17:27-28 says: "God did this so that men would seek him and reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 'For in him we live and move and have our being.'
When we allow our lives to become lost in him then we live "in Him" and we can move freely, without fear, without shame, without pain because He becomes our life. When we are lost in Him, then He will overshadow any problem which we may face or any situation we may find ourselves in. The very glory of God will flow through and penetrate us when we are lost in Him. That's why we need to "get lost" on a daily basis, as we lose ourselves and allow Christ to minister to us and through us.

My advice to you today is "Get lost!".