Lost

No, not really the popular television series. Although I have to admit I enjoyed it very much (even though I didn't understand the ending at all). And I could probably find a lot of parallels between me and the show if I tried. Am I like Jack, trying to lead and feeling overwhelmed with the responsibility and the hassle of trying to make people fall in line? Am I like Kate, aloof and closed off and although wanting to build proper relationships, somehow missing the mark most of the time? Am I like John, setting off with his own agenda, flouting a confidence I don’t necessarily feel inside? Maybe I’m like Hurley, who just wants everyone to be safe and get along and would just prefer to get on with dinner. Or perhaps I’m like Sawyer? Uh, nah, can’t even really pull a parallel there although I’d love to have the killer lopsided grin. But it’s for sure I’m a little like all of them, with their past eating a hole in their hearts and affecting their every outlook for the future. I think we are all a little like that at times. A little lost.

So I loved it when I opened my blogger this morning and read “The Map and the Plan” on Stuff Christians Like by Jon Acuff. Because nothing is better than a map and a plan if you are lost, right? If you have never read Acuff’s blog, you really should. He can be funny. He can be silly. He can be borderline irreverent with his funniness and silliness. And every now and then, he can be right on the mark with something seriously profound.

Like today, when Acuff recounts something he wrote in his journal some time ago:

“God, I’m afraid of giving the Stuff Christians Like blog everything I have and getting my hopes and dreams tied up in it because at some point it will end. It will disappear and I’m afraid that when that happens I’ll be left with nothing.”

And the reply he felt back from God:

“Good, you’re right to fear that Stuff Christians Like will go away. Because that will happen. It will vanish and evaporate one day. That’s why I don’t want you to give your all to the site. I want you to give your all to me. I want all your hopes and all your dreams.

I don’t want you to give your all to the (fill in your own blank). I want you to give your all to me.

And there is the map, a simple scrawl by a child on a wrinkled sheet of paper. Some curvy dashed lines ending in a large X. There is the plan. Not a 10-step or a 5-step or even a 3-step. A one-step plan that is really quite simple in the understanding, even though we struggle in the doing.

Give your all to me.

I once was lost, but now am found…was blind but now I see –Amazing Grace