Monday, March 24, 2008
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Our three-year-old grandson was turning out to be quite an engineer. He loved to figure out how things work and loved to build things that do. When he was at Grandma and Granddad's house, he would play with our Lincoln Logs. One day he had built a couple of cabins in the middle of our living room and we noticed he'd stopped and he was just lying on his tummy with his head cradled in his hands, studying the pictures on the Lincoln Logs container. When his mom asked him what he was doing just staring at that container, he said, "There are some pieces missing here." And he began to point out exactly what pieces were pictured on the can but missing in front of him.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Missing Pieces."
Every once in a while we hit one of those seasons in our life when we stop building long enough to realize that "there are some pieces missing here." A lot of our emotional and spiritual searching in life is for whatever missing pieces are keeping us from feeling complete. We seem to be missing the meaning in it all; the purpose of why we're here. We wonder why there's never been enough love to fill the hole in our heart ... never any real, lasting peace inside. It's in those moments when we back off from just messing with the pieces for a moment and we stand back to look at the big picture. That's when we're most likely to discover what really matters and what really doesn't.
It happened not long ago to novelist Stephen King when he almost died on a lonely rural highway. Here's what he wrote: "I found that you can't take it with you. I found out what that means. I found that while I was lying in a ditch on a country road, covered with mud and blood. I had a Master Card in my pocket. When you're lying in a ditch with broken glass in your hair, no one takes Master Card. You come in naked and broke. We may be dressed when we go out, but we go out just as broke." And then Stephen King continued, "Warren Buffett, going out broke. Bill Gates, going out broke. Tom Hanks, going out broke. Steve King, broke, not a crying dime. All the money you earn, all the stocks you buy, all the mutual funds you trade, all of that is mostly smoke and mirrors."
At the moment he wrote those words, Steven King was seeing very clearly, and seeing that a lot of what our life is about doesn't really matter. Jesus told us what does matter in one of His ultimate values-clarifying statements. It's in Mark 8:36, and it's in our word for today from the Word of God. He said: "What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?" Jesus says that what matters is what happens to your soul. Those feelings that "something's missing" inside are actually echoes of the emptiness in your soul. And if we don't stop, as the Bible says, to "prepare to meet your God" ( Amos 4:12), we'll lose our soul forever. The pursuit of this world - its relationships, its accomplishments, its stuff - can cost you your eternal soul. You can be so busy with earth that you miss heaven forever.
The most important stop you'll ever make in your life is at the cross of Jesus Christ. That's where He died to literally save your soul from the punishment for your sins. Ultimately, your God is the missing piece in your life. And the only way to Him is through His Son, the One He sent to die for you. Maybe you've been too busy for Jesus. Then you're fatally busy. God has tapped you on the shoulder today to say, "Stop and take care of your soul, man, while there's time." You can finally make things right with God. You can have every wrong thing you've ever done forgiven, if you'll reach for Jesus and tell Him today that you're putting all your trust in Him, because today is all you're sure you've got.
If that's what you want, I encourage you to drop by our website yoursforlife.net. You'll find there some things that have really helped other people be sure they've begun their relationship with Jesus Christ. It's yoursforlife.net.
Right now, nothing else is as important as getting this settled. You need to be ready for eternity, whenever it comes.