Flipping through the pages of a Billboard magazine I don’t remember subscribing to, I see lots of brightly dressed celebrities with large blue wigs and dyed pink hair–their get-ups resembling that of a super-hero film set in the seventies. I see several different photos of some of the same artists–each one their apparel getting all the more flamboyant–and it suddenly hits me: these poor souls are just desperate for attention. Any will do, be it positive or negative, commending or defaming, as long as someone is noticing them. These people crave it, live for it. They’re like fiends who can’t get enough strangers yelling their name’s and taking photos of them. They hope this will satisfy the hunger in their hearts, the gaping hole that eats at them every day, enlarging before they go to sleep at night. But it isn’t working. So they turn to drugs, to sex, to things that bring their bodies momentary pleasure. After a while, this too fails them. They think, ‘I know what I need to do: clean up my act, and get married.’ Most of the time, it only takes a year (sometimes even less than that), to realize even this doesn’t satisfy. So they tell themselves, ‘Wait! I know what will put an end to this burning desire: a family!’ They have a kid, or two, or six, and although the hole that consumes them is slightly numbed, it still isn’t pacified. “I don’t understand,” they say. “I have everything! Fame, riches, and a family. Why do I still feel this way? What could possibly be missing?” They can’t figure it out, or they refuse to cry out to the one they’ve ignored all their life, so despair consumes them, and they end their life.
This is the story of too many of them. I don’t need to say their names, we all know the famous suicides who had the entire world in their hands, and found it to not be enough. But I want to prevent those who are still with us today. The ones heading down that same road of destruction, that same empty road whose promises, in the end, never deliver the needed satisfaction.
Dear, Lady Gaga, I bring a message of hope. There is One that satisfies like the things of this world can’t. There is One who takes your brokenness, and pieces you back together again. There is One who gives you a never-ending supply of the most powerful force in the universe and in heaven itself–unconditional love. Pure love, untainted by the lies. A love that knows every sin you’ve ever committed, yet longs to forgive you for each one of them. His arms are open wide, He doesn’t care if you’ve murdered, lied, cheated, stolen, abused, blasphemed–if you will just turn to Him. Why gain the whole world, yet lose your own soul? Why live for the temporal, when your life is in His hands, and He decides when it ends? Why ignore judgement, as if you will escape it? Do you not know that God, “is a consuming fire,” and, “it is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God”? Demons tremble at the power of His name, darkness flees from His presence, it cannot stand against it. He is more powerful than everything you cling to, and if you’re not on His side, in the end, you will lose. Love cries out, it shouts from the mountains and echoes in the hills, “Come to Me, let Me make you new.”
Despite what you’ve encountered in this fallen world, His love for you is unchanging. Every second He grants you life, He gives you opportunity to come to Him, to surrender to His love. He brings glory and honor, if you only knew. The world and all its glory is fading, but the glory of Jesus Christ never fades.
“There is a way that seems right to a man, but it’s path ends in death.”
Choose life, choose love. He’s waiting.
