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All month long, we’ve been talking about the HBO series, Euphoria. We’ve discussed their glorifying depictions of high school student drug use and addiction while normalizing anonymous sex and relationship violence. Based off of the series’ popularity, Euphoria clearly has something that people want and based off of the most recent statistics, drug use is continuing to lure many teens in as well.* Apparently, we’re missing something. There is very clearly something broken inside a lot of us today that we are trying to fix with drugs, alcohol, sex, relationships, popularity, money, or a million other things. What are we missing? That’s the question we’ll begin to unpack in today’s video.
In order for us to figure out what it is that we are missing, we need to look at what it is that we are trying to fit into its place. What is it that sex, drugs, partying and everything else seem to offer that entices us to try them even though we all know the consequences? With popularity, relationships and even sex, one of the biggest lures is validation and connection. We all have a need to feel like we matter on some level to other people. We mistakenly believe that if I don’t see my own value, it’s because I am really not that valuable. We can easily pinpoint all of the myriad of reasons that people should reject us; we are deeply aware of our flaws and inadequacies, but if other people see something worthwhile in me, maybe I'll start to believe it for myself. So, we seek popularity. We try dating. We offer sex as a way of displaying our value and making ourselves more desirable. The problem is, no matter how popular we become, how many relationships we try to build or sexual partners we accumulate, we never get to the point where their affirmations become true to us. We actually start to become more isolated because the version of “me” that everyone seems to love seems to be so far removed from who I know myself to truly be.
Sometimes we pursue sex, drugs and partying as a way to numb out the pain of the world around us. Like Rue in the show or 24kGolden in one of the top songs of last year, “we play games of love to avoid the depression.” Those momentary instances of nothingness seem to be as good as it gets when your day-to-day reality is pain, despair and grief. These numbing agents don’t last for very long, though, and we end up needing a greater and greater stimulant to produce our desired outcome but with increasingly diminished returns. Sex feels empty, the high from drugs and partying start to take a turn and now, even the places you used to run to for solace only make everything worse but you’ll keep coming back because it’s all you know.
Maybe, you can’t identify with any of these situations. You’ve never done drugs, you’ve never had sex. Your family is intact, your lifestyle is comfortable and life seems good. You don’t wrestle with validation and self-worth because you have always been affirmed by the people around you. You have never been drawn to drugs or high-risk behaviors because you know who you are, what you want, how you’re going to get there and you know those types of things will only hurt you. On paper, you’re making all of the right choices but, every once in a while, you get that nagging feeling that something is missing. You’ve consistently walked the pathway to success, but you can’t shake the feeling that there has to be more to life than this.
Every one of us, no matter where we are coming from in life, is born with this one central need. We each have those moments where we become suddenly aware of how small we are in this vast universe and we wonder if there is any point to any of it; is there any point to me? Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going? These are the “Big Questions” that life will repeatedly shove in our faces at the most inopportune times. Your search for validation ends here. Your search for hope, healing, for meaning for your life and all of the pain that you’ve experienced in it, is drawing you to this point. This is the missing piece, but it’s so much more than that. You might think you’re looking for that one thing that is missing in your life, but in reality without this you will never really experience true life at all. It’s something that you’ve instinctively known all your life, you’ve witnessed first hand the inescapable evidence of this Truth all around you, and at the same time you’ve been avoiding it because of the implications of this truth. I mean, if this is real then it changes literally everything! So, the question now is, do you really want to know? Do you actually want to know what, or more appropriately Who it is that you’ve been missing? Some of you are going to hate the answer. It’s not the self-actualizing, Disney trope of, “You’re the one you’ve been searching for.” No, this one is actually true. Throughout the month of April, we’re going to be diving deep into who He is, what He has done and what all of this means for you and like I said, this changes everything, because the central point your life has been missing, the core relationship that gives purpose and reason and meaning for every other relationship, experience and the one Being who knows your true worth and value because He created you with it is the one whose image you bare. He is God. Next week, we'll talk about who He is, what He has done, and what that means for you.
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