I don’t understand the premise of the television show “Lost.”  Admittedly, I have never watched a minute of the show.  When the show was first being advertised, the commercials showed the fuselage of the airplane being blown apart and then crashing, leaving the surviving passengers stranded on a deserted island.  It was also around that time that I was going on a family vacation to Florida where my son was going to take his first airplane ride.  Needless to say, that commercial got turned off very quickly whenever it came on just to avoid unnecessary questions.

Now back to the show.  I never did watch any of the episodes of it, but I have followed along with the commercials for the show, primarily aired during football games that I do watch.  As the years have gone by, the problems for the castaways have grown progressively worse.  In the same amount of time that it took for Tom Hanks to start talking a volleyball and for Maryann to bake her first coconut cream pie for Gilligan, these people have gone through all sorts of bigger issues – my favorite being kidnapped and imprisoned in some iron-barred prison cell apparently on the same deserted island.  Even the professor with all of his acumen couldn’t come up with that one!  Leads me to believe that not only have the characters been lost, but so has the sanity of the writing staff for the show.  Anything to keep it going, I guess.  Maybe next week one of the castaways will duke it out with Jack Bauer to win immunity so that Paula Abdul can’t vote him off of the island.

For the television show to survive, simply being lost wasn’t enough to keep the show going for more than a season or two.  Therefore, the writers had to develop something more sinister to keep the plot going.  It seems far-fetched, but as long as people tune in (the show is currently in the top ten for this season) they’ll keep going with it.

For television, being lost may not be enough.  In life, however, being lost is more than scary enough.  Many people struggle with loss:  the loss of loved ones in death, the loss of love in a marriage, the loss of a friendship, the loss of a job, the loss of one’s confidence, the loss of health, the loss of your security.  Even the loss of your car keys creates problems.  Lately, I find myself feeling rather lost.  That seems hard to believe considering my schedule, but I am grappling with a great many things lately.  In many ways, I feel lost and alone; set adrift in a sea of animosity, confusion, and uncertainty.  Each day starts anew, but more often than not I find myself back on my island.  The struggle comes when you find yourself in this place and there’s really nobody to whom you can reach out and share what’s happening or nobody who can understand and bring clarity to the situation. 

In this situation, what a comfort it is to know that our God is big enough to be there for us.  This may sound like a trite solution to a tremendous problem, but in truth, it is actually the spiritual solution to the problem.  When we try to use the knowledge of the world to solve the mysteries of the world, we come up short.  After all, the reason we named them mysteries in the first place is because even with all of the knowledge in the world we were unable to solve them. Why rely on the limited powers of a sinful creation when we have at our disposal the perfect power of the Creator to enlighten us and provide us exactly what we need at the proper time.

You see, while the list of losses seems large and complete I haven’t touched on the most significant one in the group.  The greatest of the losses we can experience is the loss of our faith and the relationship that we have with Christ.  To live life outside of the outstretched arms of God, shunning His love for us must be a hopeless and desolate feeling.  How fortunate we are to have this opportunity to have Christ in our lives.

But how many of us truly take advantage of the relationship we have?  How often do we find ourselves seeking the approval of others, the knowledge of man, or the advice of a talk show host, instead of turning our hearts and minds toward the awesome power of God?  Why must we rely upon our own thoughts to dictate what it is that we should do?  Yes, God gives us intelligence and common sense for a reason.  But didn’t He also give to us His Word for a reason as well?  Paul writes in the first chapter of 1 Corinthians:

17For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

18For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19For it is written:  “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

20Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.

Why then do we rely upon earthly remedies for spiritual ailments?  Maybe we have more in common with the writers of “Lost” than I thought.