No Such Thing as a Lost Cause

Dana was watching a history show today on TV about a man named Hugh Glass, a frontiersman in early 1800’s South Dakota. I was in the next room, but the story caught my attention and I found myself listening in. Apparently, this man was attacked by a bear and mauled so badly that his traveling companions thought he couldn’t possibly have survived. They dug a shallow, open “grave” and just placed him inside, sure he was either dead or soon to die. Being pioneers who didn’t waste anything, they stripped him of his tools and personal effects and left him in that ditch. A couple of months later, people in a fort some distance away were shocked when a severely wounded and emaciated man crawled into their midst, claiming to be Hugh Glass. Many didn’t believe he was who he said he was. Others thought he was a dead man come back to life and it terrified them. The unpleasant details of how he managed to survive make up a story that is nothing short of miraculous.

How many of our loved ones are in such bad shape that we finally just give up on them? Physically, perhaps they’re very sick and we have lost any expectation of their recovery…or spiritually, perhaps they’ve been so mean, so addicted, so rebellious, or so detached from our families that we’ve written them off as hopeless cases?  Or marriages in which we become just too tired to do the work of making them last?  I’m writing this to urge you, if you’re tempted to give up on someone, DON’T! The Bible is full of lost causes! Jairus’ daughter. The demoniac of Gadara. Lazarus. Gomer, the estranged wife of the prophet Hosea.  Peter, in prison. If you will persist in prayer, that person may be the next “dead man” to stagger into your midst, alive and set free from the clutches of Satan!

Who prayed for you? Now, for whom will you pray WITHOUT GIVING UP? “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” (Galatians 6:9 ESV)

Lord, raise up an army of lost causes, and may their testimonies of deliverance shake open the doors where others are held captive!