Oh, Jude. What’s it like being you? To never get the easy job; that would be exhausting.
You see, one of my all-time favorite songs, (*Fin) by Anberlin, makes references to this individual. Throughout the song, the band states, “We are the patron saints of lost causes.” Not knowing who in the Catholic Church meets this description, I ran into good old Jude via Google. Jude (or Thaddeus) is, according to Catholic tradition (I say tradition, because God’s Word speaks nothing of it), the saint in whom you contact if you are facing the most desperate of scenarios that no one else wants to touch. In short, he is the last resort of hope if you are facing a lost cause. What I find so interesting about this viewpoint of theirs is that there are several individuals in the pages of God’s Word that could indeed be called “Saints of Lost Causes.” Namely, the Prophets of the Lord, Ezekiel and Jeremiah, found in the Old Testament. This is not in regards to praying to them rather than God, but rather that they faced the most difficult of causes. We see that before they went into their ministry, God forewarned them that their audiences would not hear them out (Jer. 7:24; Ezek. 3:7). Talk about depressing, right? It must have taken much courage and trust in the Lord to accomplish this lost mission, but that is not the mission of this post.
Instead, I want to specifically look at the audiences that these prophets had to speak to. In Anberlin’s song that I mentioned, lead singer Stephen Christian asks the question, “Is all we are to you just lost causes?” An interesting question to ask ourselves. Are we, like the people of Israel, a lost cause? What do I mean regarding this term? Well, according to Ezekiel 3:7 the people of God’s nation would not hear His words because they were “stubborn and obstinate.” Their thinking and reasoning was so tainted by their way of life, traditions of their past, teaching from their parents, and their own personal opinions that they closed their ears to the Word of the Lord. Is that us today?
So many people face similar prejudices in our own lives and mindsets. We are so gung-ho when it comes to our views and circumstances that any powerful instruction is disregarded completely. We are, in a sense, just the same lost causes as the lost Israelite people. In order to avoid this narrow-minded trap, we must be lovers of God’s truth as 2 Thess. 2:10 states. If we truly want to be followers of God, we must drop our past convictions and traditions and only look to His inspired Word. If we can fight our own pride and stubbornness, we might not be as lost as we assumed.
P.S. “The Wolf” is so far my favorite track from Mumford and Sons’ new sounding album.
warnes on a wire 