The Hardest Lesson of All

I've learned a great number of really tough lessons lately, but the one I've struggled with the most is that there are actually unsaveable people in this world.

I've always been optimistic when it comes to people's character and potential for salvation. I've always just accepted as fact that every single person will be touched by God and called to the side of light, goodness, caring, and love.

God has pointed out to me quite clearly recently that some people just cannot be reached (in this life, anyways), i.e. saved, due to a multitude of factors, including but certainly not limited to too damaging a childhood.

I had a customer at work the other day who was in his early 20's. He was the epitome of a gang banger and dressed the part with the droopy embroidered drawers, bandana, hat with the size tag still on it, and enough "bling" to delay him considerably at airports. He shared with me--quite freely--the odors of cheap liquor and pot. My conversation with him was a shade lopsided, as I could only pick out a few of the words through his mumbling, and the words I did actually hear let me know at no point in his life did he ever value education, good manners, or respect for the English language. Is this guy saveable?

Don't know, and frankly, I wasn't concerned with him. He brought with him his young son--maybe five years old--who was dressed in the costume of his daddy's profession. Five year olds do not make good gang-banging drug dealers, no matter how adorable they are. That poor little boy is looking at a hard and ugly life and is obviously being conditioned and brain washed into it. That boy, without a cataclysmic change in his life, will end up exactly like his father.

So what is the lesson in seeing an apparently hopeless child, especially one I have absolutely no chance of being able to help or influence in a needfully positive way? What can I do?

Nothing, except pray. Pray that God intervenes; pray that God still gives that cute little kid an open heart and a call to a more positive and constructive life. And then leave it in God's hands.

Which brings me to my point: it all boils down to faith. God sees into the souls of all people, obviously, and will call the ones God knows can and will answer. That little boy's salvation, whether he knows it or not, is left to God. And it is entirely at God's discretion as to whether that boy will be saved. His current family situation doesn't seem to give him good odds, but God's will ALWAYS happens both in this life and the next. God's will is always good and just, and that is where my faith lies. Thanks be to God always.