HUNG UP?

Are you hung up? Do you feel strung out behind a maze of establishment

insecurity? Do you find it difficult to define a purpose within a society

whose goals seem no more solid than a plastic baggie? Have you, out of

searching desperation, turned to a chemical or meditative cloud #9, only to

find that you still don't know where it's at? If you can slip into the

proverbial shoe here, then let me take just a few moments of your time to tell

you how I left that scene to go down a much better road.

My whole life from about the age of 10 was spent continually looking for that

"little something" that was missing in my parent's reality. I never knew what

it was, but something about my new stepfather's success (his status,

education, house, etc.) just didn't make it. Somehow, as he hurried down that

long road to "success", he had forgotten to pick up love and feeling and other

"little" things like that.

As a child I didn't know too much, but I did know that if I couldn't find what

I was looking for at home, then I'd have to go elsewhere. So I went. Now,

where I went, and how I went differed greatly from one time to another, but

the road was always the same. Sometimes, I felt that happiness was maybe just

over the hill, and so I'd physically move from one place to another. At other

times, I felt that it surely must all be in the mind, and I would search

myself for some hidden knowledge that I possessed but wasn't conscious of. My

search took me into many areas, both physically and mentally, and although I

felt so close to it at times, I never quite came onto what I wanted.

As a result of this feeling, I was driven into the spectrum of the drug scene.

The first time I tried grass (marijuana), I didn't do it to satisfy my longing

to fill the void I felt, I did it just "for kicks." I didn't really expect it

to be the answer I needed, but in the back of my mind, I wondered if it wasn't

within this bag that I might, come upon it. Still, I wasn't really

disappointed when all I found was a good feeling with no permanency. Yet, I

couldn't help thinking of the word "plastic" or something that doesn't last. I

wanted more than a temporary euphoria that had to be artificially induced!

Convinced by this time that what I wanted was on a mental, rather than a

physical level, I experimented with other drugs. I went from grass to hash, to

opium, to speed; "uppers and downers", anything and everything to get some

kind of a "high", and then I heard about it. Acid!!! LSD, mind-expanding,

astro- projection. Wow! Here I felt had to be my answer. To expand the mind, to

reach out into unexplored truths, this would be it. And so, I tripped out. Not

once, but several times. I tried different kinds of hallucinogenics,

mescaline, peyote, DMT.

I have never beard anyone accurately describe a trip, but what I found was

wild, sometimes scary, and bizarre at other times. I often felt the same

euphoria as with grass, but somehow heavier. I felt up and down, peaceful and

unrestful. What I didn't feel was satisfaction. What I had done was to go from

one "plastic bag" to another. If acid was to be my happiness, then the first

thing I didn't dig was that it wasn't free. I had to buy it, I had to function

within the society at least long enough to make some money. MAKE SOME MONEY???

But this was what I was running from in the first place!

Oh Wow! Man, I'd gone nowhere!

As a last resort, I turned to the one thing that I had always been scared to

try. All my life, I'd heard people talk about God and Jesus Christ. But the

thing that held me back was that I didn't want to cling to a false security. I

didn't want to lean on a personal or social crutch. And yet, some people said

that God was real, not just an illusion. If this was true, then I had

everything to gain, if not, then I was just in the same boat.

I had nothing to lose. Man, why not try it? Out of desperation I cried out,

"God, if you're real, show me. And then, Lord, if you show me I'm no fool,

I'll give my life to you. If you want me, I'm yours. People tell me that God

will forgive me; that I don't have to pay for God's love, that I just have to

accept it. Okay, I like that, but Lord, I don't want just a false security. So

God, if you're real, I want to absolutely know."

The only way I can explain the magnitude of the next few moments is in terms

of the feeling that swept over me. I felt an immediate rush of peace and

tranquility, coupled with an awareness of a love so total and complete that l

burst into tears at the realization of its beauty. Almost immediately that

verse in the Bible I had heard so often flashed before me, "For God so loved

the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him

should not perish, but have everlasting life." At that moment I knew that my

search was over. I had found that love that was missing in my parents realty.

The happiness I had looked for "over the hill" was suddenly within my heart. I

also knew that this beautiful feeling was not a "plastic bag" that would tear

apart and disappear, it was here to stay! And perhaps most beautiful of all,

that this feeling was mine, because of the reality of a living God and His

love for me. A love that was mine for free through Jesus Christ!

The Bible says this about love "Beloved, let us love one another: for love is

of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that

loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love

of God toward us because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world,

that we might live through him." (I John 4:7-9).

Oh, brother and sister, can you dig it? Have you too spent your life searching

for a happiness that always seems to be "over the next hill?" Are you tired of

running through an emotional maze, constantly going from one temporary bag

into another ? Would you also like to have this eternal love and peace that

comes with the knowledge that you have been forgiven for the wrongs you've

done, and now possess the key to eternal life ? There is only one way to find

it. You won't find it by searching from one hill to another. It won't come to

you through acid or meditation. It isn't yours by professing brotherly love

alone, or by just wanting to "do your own thing." You won't get it by

philosophizing your way around it, or by pretending that God doesn't exist. It

is yours if you are willing only to admit the reality of God and His Son Jesus

Christ, and by admitting this, will confess your sins to your Creator and

Saviour, and then turn (repent) from them.

How little to do to receive so much. And yet, isn't that what love is all

about? God loves you. He just wants to have you, by your choice, accept the

reality of His love. Isn't it time you found that "better way to go?" Dig it

man, this is the only road.

 

---------------

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