Missing Person

I’ve been listening to the words of Michael W. Smith’s song, Missing Person. These words have dissected my heart and laid it bare before me. I looked at it and I couldn’t find the missing person. There is a boy I am looking for, and either he grew old or grew wings and flew away.

There was a boy who had the faith to move a mountain

And like a child he would believe without a reason

Without a trace, he disappeared into the void and

I’ve been searchin’ for that missing person

He used to want to try to walk the straight and narrow

He had a fire he could feel it in the marrow

It’s been a long time and I haven’t seen him lately but

I’ve been searching for that missing person

There are times, like now, that I miss God. It’s not because I have sinned. I sin all the time, and I have felt him closest to me when I was committing some of the worst sins imaginable to man. It has taught me that sin never makes God withdraw his Spirit from me. He himself said he would never leave me nor forsake me. (Hebrews 13:5). I simply don’t know what’s going on.

But I still miss the boy that I was. I miss the blind faith and the exhilarating assurance of supernatural miracles. I am in a desert and I don’t even know how I got there. The thirst and hunger eat at me. I am totally exposed.

I am searching for that missing person.

I feel all alone, but I know I am not. So I write this to ask, is there anyone out there like me? Anyone tired of the emptiness that is so alien it causes you to dread yourself? Please call me, text me or send me an email. I know I was never meant to travel this journey alone. I don’t really need encouragement, because I know all the right words. I need someone who’s been there, or who is there. Someone who knows what it feels like to know something in your heart that doesn’t make sense to your head.

So I don’t know whether I’ll find that missing person who used to be me. I don’t care if I never find him, as long as I find someone better. But right now, I am looking back at the past, and wondering how I could leave it without erecting a monument. I sometimes love deceiving myself that the past is better than the future. 

Listen to the whole song, Missing Person here: