Sanity

Sanity

Sanity  

One of the things I cannot relate to is how it feels to be profoundly lost.  I (Jim) was really lost only once, and this was when I was about 5 years old.  It changed the way my mind was (and is!) wired.  I still remember it.  This was only one time and my father was there to find me and rescue me, but it still changed me forever. 

What must it be like to be profoundly lost…for years?   

Imagine being a child kidnapped by sex traffickers..  No one to rescue you; no one to help you.  Then one day, your father finds you.  Feel the release that would produce in you! 

Here in Luke 8 was a man who had been lost for years.  Tortured by captors (over a thousand of them!) who used you and abused you internally and externally.  Then Jesus comes and rescues you.  What must that have felt like?  To be released, to get clothed, to sit down, to relax for the first time in years, and to be in your right mind.  What must that have been like?? 

Luke 8:35–39 (NAS): The people went out to see what had happened; and they came to Jesus, and found the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting down at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind; and they became frightened. 

 36 Those who had seen it reported to them how the man who was demon-possessed had been made well. 

 37 And all the people of the country of the Gerasenes and the surrounding district asked Him to leave them, for they were gripped with great fear; and He got into a boat and returned. 

 38 But the man from whom the demons had gone out was begging Him that he might accompany Him; but He sent him away, saying, 

 39 “Return to your house and describe what great things God has done for you.” So he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city what great things Jesus had done for him.

No wonder he wanted to go with Jesus!  Yet Jesus tells him to go and tell his family.  We, too, should just go and tell our family what the Lord has done for us.  That’s all we have to do: tell what Jesus has done for us.   

___ 

Jesus, 

Tonight we feel the lost-ness of being without you.  We taste the insanity and smell the stench of oppression….then are released by you.  We will tell the world!  You have freed us.  We are so so grateful.   

Amen