I spent an amazing year of my life working in a home for emotionally disturbed teenagers, some of the most battered and broken among us. The life of one boy in particular—I’ll call him Sam—was a nightmare.
From Sunday night until Friday afternoon, Sam was in my care, but if he chose to, he could go home for the weekend. His profound loyalty to his dysfunctional family shocked me. His dad was a violent drunk, and his mom was a small woman who had been battered into silence. Sam would come back to our unit on Sunday nights covered with bruises, insisting that he’d fallen down the stairs or off his bike—and there was absolutely nothing I could do. His violent outbursts at school had landed him in our care, but he still had the right to return to the home that had shattered his concept of love.
I wept for Sam on my knees.
I wrestled with God over the life of this boy.
How, I asked the Lord, can I tell Sam that nothing could ever separate him from Your love when curses and fists tell him otherwise?
When my year at the home ended, I told Sam that I would continue to pray for him. I also told him that sometimes the most powerful prayer is a single word: “Jesus!”
Several years later I was back in the area speaking. At the end of the evening, I was gathering my stuff in the dressing room when there was a knock at the door. It was Sam. With tears running down his cheeks, he told me how often he had prayed that simple prayer and that now Jesus was the strength of his life. Such is the unlimited love of our God!
As Jesus said, “The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10 NIV). The word for lost used here is apollymi. It means “devastated; ruined; broken beyond repair.”
Do you know someone—or are you that someone—who has been crushed by life events? Know that we can never be too wounded to be healed by Jesus.
Jesus came for those of us who seem broken beyond repair.
“The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
Luke 19:10 NIV
“If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders.”
Luke 15:4–5
[The Pharisees] said to [Jesus’] disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when [Jesus] heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.”
Matthew 9:11–12 ESV
Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst.
1 Timothy 1:15 NIV
I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:38–39 NIV
Five Minutes in the Word 