Lost Causes

One of the greatest movies of all times is the timeless Frank Capra classic Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. I love that movie. I could watch it over and over again, time and time again, and find myself just as wrapped up in the story as I had been the first time I saw it.

There’s a line. Jimmy Stewart’s voice is cracking, his legs are buckling, tired and worn he is barely able to speak in anything more than a whisper. They assume that they had broken his spirit, and that he was ready to just go down, defeated and destroyed. Yet he looks up with his weary eyes, the sweat beading on his forehead and he says, “I guess this is just another lost cause, Mr. Paine. All you people don't know about lost causes. Mr. Paine does. He said once they were the only causes worth fighting for. And he fought for them once, for the only reason any man ever fights for them; because of just one plain simple rule: 'Love thy neighbor.'... And you know that you fight for the lost causes harder than for any other. Yes, you even die for them.”

How many times in my life have I heard the call of God telling me to do something and thought to myself ‘that’s just a lost cause’? For too long that was my excuse for everything. I didn’t do it because it was too hard or because it was too challenging, or because I wanted to do something else in my life. So I would say to myself ‘it’s just a lost cause’ and I would stop fighting or I would stop pushing forward. I would go off and do something simpler because it came more natural to me or it was easier.

The greatest understanding that came to my life though, save the grace that brings my faith, was the day that I came to understand that what I think might be a lost cause but God has a greater plan amidst all of it. I may have been like Jonah, ready to run in the opposite direction, fleeing the Lord’s plan, fleeing the Lord’s understanding. (Jonah 1) Jonah tried to explain to God that he had fled because of God’s mercy and graciousness, knowing that God would not destroy Nineveh (Jonah 4:1-3) yet the simple truth was that he had saw the city as a lost cause amidst it’s unrighteousness and by going to it the Prophet believed that He would forfeit his life. After all, why set on the long journey to Tarshish if he felt like he had nothing to fear?

Abraham knew something about lost causes. As God prepared to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, He sent His messengers to the man and his family telling them to flee the city they had made their home in. The ancient patriarch’s response would be telling. He would ask if there were fifty there righteous would the Lord spare the cities? He would go down the list until he would ask “Oh let not the LORD be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there.” (Genesis 18:16-33)

This is an important lesson in our faith. We should be prepared to fight the good fight of it, to run the race and to profess our solid confession in front of many witnesses (1 Timothy 6:12) even when it seems like it is a lost cause. We should be prepared to do it even when the road seems hard and wrought with challenges, when we are left to wonder what good it will do. We should be willing to do so that even the smallest number of people may hear and draw closer to the Lord being led by the Spirit to a greater understanding of faith.

Could you imagine if Christ had somehow believed that humanity was a lost cause? After all, even though He had come to rescue us all from our sins, He knew that until we reached the glories of Heaven we would all fall short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23) Yet, instead of viewing us as a lost cause, He was made man that we might be saved by grace, through faith and not of our own works or by our own hand. (Ephesians 2:8-9) Even when we were a lost cause, He saved us all.

We should all live our lives for those things in our faith we consider to be a lost cause that the Spirit may be magnified through us. Perhaps we may not be able to reach all people, but to reach even one gives us purpose and meaning amidst the calling that we have from the Lord. Anyways, when we proceed in the love of the Lord, letting it encompass our spirits and our souls, there is no such thing as a lost cause in our lives.