Suffering Loss? Lost Your Compass?
“…I am the way, the truth, and the life…” John 14:6
One night I was sitting with the Bible atop my little bed with one of my numerous dogs squished up right by my side thinking about a friend of mine who had recently lost someone very close to him and only a short while after learned another loved one had what appeared to be a terminal disease. In reflecting on what he was going through, and how committed I was in my heart to be there for him in any way I could most importantly to be used by God that God might draw him to repentance and salvation through Christ so he would have a forever relationship with God not to mention the love, peace, hope, and comfort on earth he so desperately needed in this indescribably challenging season of his life, I thought about something he was very likely experiencing that I had experienced for literally decades of my life. Given the plethora of losses I had been through over the years, I had experienced over and again something extraordinarily hard, scary, dangerous – and, I came to find, unnecessary. I had lost my compass, time and again.
Anyone who knows me well knows that I am enormously intense and over-the-top passionate. I don’t tend to do things half-measure, at least when it comes to love. I love the Lord more than imagination, and I also absolutely love people. And when it comes to those closest to me, my love is extreme. God undoubtedly has given me a big heart. All would be well with this, except that for years the people I loved were my compass. My dependency was on them, not God. Life was a roller-coaster, to say the least. I went up when things were good in my relationships, and all the way down when they were not. My heart beat seemed to be based on people and how my relationships with them fared. And, sad to say, when a relationship ended or a person died, I simply lost my compass. I lost my sense of direction. I lost my way. I lost my bearings. Sometimes I even lost my desire to carry on. No longer did I have in my heart the compass I used to get around, to get through life. So hard. So scary. So dangerous. Why? Because I didn’t know Jesus Christ intimately.
Today, Jesus is my compass. He is the way. He is the Truth. He is my light and my life. God’s Word provides my road map, my directions. Christ is my reason for being, my reason for going on, my reason to wake up and breathe and to live. Even when I suffer loss, as I continue to do, I no longer lose my compass. I no longer lose my bearings. He is my bearing. And He bears me through the loss, which has been so very much and often in my life. My compass is with me forever. Jesus. Now I know Him ever more. Now I follow Him not only because He shows me the way. He who makes my heart beat is the way for eternity.
Is He yours?