As I was half asleep today, my mind began racing, filling with heart-wrenching scenes of utter depravity and hopelessness which I have observed as we have traversed the continent.

Hollow eyes, desperate faces, bodies marred by sin.

Many kids see the idols of music and film living lives of sin, and yet, with their perfect bodies, glistening hair, designer clothes…and everything their hearts could ever desire handed to them on a silver platter. And they think, “I wouldn’t mind being like that. I’d like to have that level of comfort and the ability to live in those appealing sins, without people criticizing me. And of course, being adored by everyone would be an awesome bonus too!”

But…that is not reality. Those stars are the “pets” of the corrupt men and women who are really at the top, making money off of the kids who have become America’s idols. Of course they will be pampered, and groomed, and doted upon…and the devil is all too glad to give them every earthly pleasure, as long as they lead the Nation’s children down the path to destruction with them. They are tools of the devil. Tools to get impressionable souls to turn from what is pure and good, and to set their feet instead upon the ways of sin. This is the way of the devil: he makes sin to seem attractive. He puts up a sparkling front to lure in the naive. But when the lure is swallowed, the pit of darkness opens below to engulf its victim.

The reality is, the sunken eyes and matted hair of the homeless girl we met, sleeping under a sun-frayed tarp on the sidewalk.

Reality is the man – skin and bones, and face aged by sin, who made his way to the “recreational marijuana shop” because he had nothing more to live for. The scruffy beard, and bag strapped to his bike bespoke of a man, most likely homeless, who was now in bondage to his vice, giving every last bit of money he could beg, borrow, or steal, to keep the unquenchable fire fed.

Reality is the natives, some so very young, who know little more than that liquor numbs the pain. Many of whom wander their dirty, destitute streets, with no hope for the future – in bondage to sin, and to the native spirits that are welcome there…which have no mercy upon their victims.

Sin does not beautify. It does not satisfy. It does not fulfill. It numbs, hardens, causes fear, and strips away all that was sweet, lovely, or innocent. It destroys. It cripples. It enslaves.

And as I thought of these things, there came a voice, “It is right to weep for these desolate ones. Please weep. It is fitting.”

If we are not weeping for these souls, we do not have our eyes open. We need to wake up, look around at the desolation, and cry out to God to rescue these who have been ensnared by sin’s deceitful call, and seek for ways to give them hope, and to hold them back from death.

If you think there’s nothing you can do, just look around you. Even the smallest town is filled with desolate, hopeless ones.

Ask God what He would have you do.

(P.S. It is not me trying to get you to cry that is the point of these thoughts. The point is, when we care enough about those around us, and when God fills us with His love and concern for them, crying over their desolation simply shows that we can see clearly, and our hearts are not hardened to the reality of what sin does to us. It shows that we have not gotten “used to” the pain around us. It shows that we are ready to be used by God to reach out to them.)