Maybe you've reached the time in your life when you're beginning to sense how big the real issues are: how wounded and scarred people are, how hopeless and powerless many feel; how tortured and twisted our relationships often are; how we have hurt those whom we love including our kids; how out of control our sexuality sometimes is; how fragile our families are; how deeply almost everyone hurts.

The truth is, we are all so needy. So hungry. You'll never know this about the other guy; he will never tell you. This is too deep. We each need so desperately to be wrapped up in a love we can trust, a love that heals us, comforts us, assures us, and adores us. You can picture a loving parent nurturing, protecting, and affirming; but many children never got that, and even the best parents could only do it imperfectly. They too were wounded.

So we spend the rest of our lives looking for it. Maybe we marry, and now we expect this perfect love from our husband or wife. Or maybe we've found the perfect friend, a dream friend. Now we will be loved. But guess what! It doesn't happen, because they're as hurt and hungry and needy as we are.

So we get angry and bitter, or more likely guarded and protective. Maybe we look to be filled up at work, or by the guys at the bar or the girls at the club, or by our last favorite hobby. But it never happens; so we build walls around ourselves, or we find some way to numb ourselves, or we self-destruct.

Meanwhile a Dark Force seeps into our souls, telling us that we are somehow by someone accused. The consequences of our decisions and actions are piling up against us. In the scales of justice, we owe a debt and our wrongness overwhelms us and begins to immobilize us. We stand accused. We try to forget it. We settle for making it through the day or making it through the night or making it to the weekend. But every time we stop and look - stop and really feel - the darkness and hunger are still there.

The truth is that our neediness can only be met by returning home to our loving Father God who gave life to each of us. In fact, the hunger within you is the homesickness of the soul longing for its true home. Now as you turn again homeward, God will wrap you up in love. He will run to you when you are still a long way off. When you are feeling lost, all alone out in the wilderness, He is out looking for you. He is delighted by you. All this we know from the birth and life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. And this loving Father God bleeds for us. That we learn at the cross. Once in human history, God stepped out from behind all the books about Him and loved us enough to become one of us and die for us. Moreover, He died by the most excruciating death imaginable - crucifixion - and in His very last hours He forgave even His executioners. All this happened so that we could know deep down inside - as bedrock certainty - that at the heart of the universe there is forgiveness and sacrificial love rather than accusation. Now knowing this, we can learn to trust the life our Father God gives us and the life to which He calls us. And the Dark Force of accusation, fear, and doubt recedes. All along it was Satan, and not God, who is the Great Accuser.

What God now offers you is forgiveness, the feeling you had as a child when you woke up each morning feeling fully alive and innocent. It can be that way again. You can start over. Whoever you are, whatever you've done, you can start over. You will find yourself increasingly empowered by the Spirit of God in your inner being. And you will be able to do immeasurably more than you have ever imagined before.

Astonishingly, however, there is even more to this good news. Jesus did not stay dead. He was resurrected, confirming within history what thoughtful people have always known. Death is not the end. There is so much more to being alive. And now Jesus offers to us the sure confidence of resurrection beginning in our lives here and now. Lives are resurrected. Families are resurrected. Friendships are resurrected. Communities are resurrected. Trust and hope and love are resurrected. For the Christian, this is foundational truth.

As your life is transformed by this Story, you will want to tell others. And you will want to form communities with others who have learned these things. These will be communities dedicated to living and teaching the ways of Jesus.

Consequently, these communities will be based on trust. They will be filled with such grace that we will learn to be completely honest with one another even about the things that may have once shamed us. These communities will be held together by forgiveness, reconciliation, and love. They will renounce the ways of power, control, and domination. And they will channel our energies toward feeding the hungry, inviting strangers in, seeking justice for the oppressed, looking after the sick, even visiting those in prison. Through these communities we will learn to celebrate God's goodness in a world of marvelous complexity, diversity, and mystery. And we will play our part in God's loving intention to save the world through Jesus. These communities are called churches. They are not institutions but living and growing communities of fellow sinners, all saved by the grace of our Savior, and seeking to be God's people in the world until all things are brought together and made perfect again in the Kingdom of God. That is the best news you could ever hear, and it has the power to change your life.

Adapted from Dale Pauls
"Introducing the Gospel:The Best News You've Ever Heard,"
Stamford, Connecticut

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