You stand before the shrine; your hands are cracked, your soul is weary.  The well is dry.  In every fiber of your being, you are screaming for survival.  “Why have you forsaken me?” you cry out.  “Why will you not respond?”  The idol stares back, wooden, lifeless; its lovelessness destroys you.

You lost your job.  Your marriage fell apart.  Your father died.  Your best friend committed suicide.  Bad things happened to good people.  Injustice prevailed, despite the years you spent fighting it.  Evil triumphed.  Hope was lost.  Your heart is breaking.

What do we worship?  Where do we run to?  What things destroy us?  You dip your cup; it comes up empty.  Your sorrow carves into you, ever more deeply.  We are cracked and running out – we are desperate to be full.

Israel submits itself to Baal.  In wretchedness, our souls cry out.  We ask for something, anything, at this point, we don’t even care what it is – postmodernism, new makeup, sexual addiction, eating disorders, abusive relationships, drugs and self-destruction and any other man-made machine of death we can hook ourselves up to.  On the brink of death, we ask desperately for life.

In our own personal hells, Jesus intervenes, steps in softly, and says,

“I have purchased you.”

The hell of lovelessness, of idol-worship, it dissipates around you like a fading cloud.  The prison bars you railed against – they fall away from around your bruised and battered body.  The wounds, so clotted with blood, so buried deep within you – they are ripped wide open, plunged into alcohol, balmed with a healing serum, smoothed over with new skin.  You are restored.  You are cared for.  You are healed.

My heart cries out, my spirit shouts, I’ll praise your name forevermore.