A student involved our ministry disappeared on a Friday night in June, and was not heard from by their family for several weeks. The police reports were filed, and we all began to think the worst. But then out of the blue, they posted on Facebook, yet made it clear they didn’t want contact with any one. Another week elapsed, and we heard they were home. This student had sat under a Bible leader, and had attended one of our conferences, yet still no one saw it coming. The parents decided to enroll them in a day program to deal specifically with issues related to their runaway, but last night we learned they had left that program, and were in the wind. Now eighteen, not much can be done legally to bring them home.
But what if we decided that their value far outweighed the risks, and we went after them? That would be gutsy. What if we didn’t passively sit back and wait for events to unfold, but did research, found out where they were last seen, and went into the cross hairs of a dangerous and malignant street culture to seek them, as God has done for us? That’s a gutsy gospel. What if when we found them, we wouldn’t leave their side, until they agreed to come home? Walked with them until the presence of Christ in us, and our urgent pleas drew the madness from their veins, and they came back to her senses. That is a gutsy gospel. This student needs an advocate, a place sharer, someone called alongside to walk through the darkest hell, and point to the true light awaiting their broken humbled return.
This student needs a gutsy gospel.
What does it cost to love a generation whose sense of right and wrong has been dulled by the pollutants of a culture oversexed and underwhelmed by shallow media messengers? How do we express the love of Christ in terms they will understand? No amount of relevance will do the trick. There are some who, as Jesus put it, will not respond except through extraordinary prayer. Granted, the spiritual upper hand must be wrested from the grip of our enemy. That too, is a gutsy gospel. But shoe leather of the boldest and bravest kind must be applied to go after them. For if we risk the alternative, (doing nothing) we lose ear shot with a generation already adrift from the shores of truth, almost ensuring the next generation being out of range altogether.
We don’t have time to sit around and formulate a plan. We need to act. That movement toward those in need of rescuing represents in my mind the core value of God’s reason for keeping us alive for our few years remaining. If we can help seek for and find one lost soul, then we have identified with and believed the gospel, the pleading pardoning and prevailing love of God.