A Wanted Man

That little Vietnamese boy haunted me when I returned to the States in 1972. We’d gone to an orphanage near DaNang to visit, and he scooted up to us, so happy to see us. He was missing both legs, probably blown off in a booby trap. It was so painful to see such a thing.

Returning from that war only confirmed what we’d known all along: we’d been had. Our lives were put on the line, and so many of us came back in body bags, because some people wanted to make a great name for themselves, and didn’t mind risking our lives to do it. So we arrived back, glad to be alive, wanting to get on with life.

But I couldn’t. Whatever had sustained me or given me a reason to live was now oozing out of my pores. I knew that better men than myself died over there, and yet here I was, alive, but not well. 

I had been raised going to church, but I had always hated it. Surely, if all God wanted me to do was to sit in a pew once a week, bored out of my mind, then we would just have to part ways. So I did. But now, back on the shores of my homeland, I wondered.

All that time in Vietnam I never feared death. Sometimes Christians came around to tell me I should fear death, but I didn’t. I feared their pew far more. What could be worse than that? Yet there it was, a greater fear. It was the fear that I could have been snuffed out over there, and it would not have made one bit of difference whether or not I had ever existed.

This I could not live with. Why was I alive? Was there any reason to be alive, other than just to accumulate as many pleasures as I could before I exited the planet? So my search began.

I had no idea what I was doing, or where I was going. I knew that I was deeply selfish, and I had hurt others as a result. I hated how I was, and wanted to change. But more than wanting to change, I wanted to leave the world. Why change if I remained in the same society that coerced me to go to war, and then condemned me for falling in line? I wanted out, and felt like I was losing my grip on life. But you’d never know it to see me on the outside. I acted cool and indifferent, maybe the same way you do. It’s called “survival.”

I wandered into the Yellow Deli late at night... many nights, actually. I’d sit in a corner on third shift, sipping coffee and just watching the workers. What’s up with them, anyway? Finally, I asked a young woman, “Are you people spiritual or something?”

“Oh yes,” she replied, “We love Jesus.”

Oh, no. Not Him. What a disappointment. They were so warm and friendly, obviously glad to be alive, unlike me. I spent my time wandering around town all night long, not going to sleep until the sun came up, like a bat. Restless, unhappy, longing for something, but what? Not Jesus, that’s for sure.

I’d been reading the Bible some, because I felt Jesus must have been on to something. It seemed like He wanted people to catch on to a different way of seeing things, and this intrigued me. But anyone I’d ever encountered who was into Jesus was intent on making money and being really secure. I never saw anything special about that kind of love.

But these people were... well, if you’ve ever been around them, then you probably know what I was feeling. I was feeling wanted, maybe. There came a point in my life when all I really wanted to do was be where I was really wanted. I finally made the connection in my heart that this is really how God must feel. The way I’d been in my life, I surely never made Him feel wanted, but He overlooked that.

One night this little group had a meeting. They were always having meetings, but I actually went to this one. The darkness in my life was suffocating me, but whenever I came around them it was if a little oxygen breezed across my nose. Especially Gene. That night I came up to him and, for the first time in my life, told another person that my life was troubled and dark, and that I knew I was wrong. He warmly took both my hands and looked into my eyes, and said, “Now I know that you are a child of God.”

I don’t know how he knew that. I sure didn’t know it about myself. I think he understood the pain of living a pointless life, and had finally found the true source of hope. I’ve watched that same hope for others be displayed over and over, through many painful circumstances with so many different people, and maybe now I’m coming to understand. Many of us have sought to understand God’s heart by reading the Bible, but 2,000 years after He walked the earth, the path of love has remained such a great mystery.

All over the earth men have viewed the sunset and known of the existence of God, no matter by what name they might call Him. They have prayed for rain, and He has given it, and they have felt thankful. But to know why you are here on the earth, that is a very deep well that very few ever drink from. Some say we are here to love others, but I say, “Where can you find it?” And if you do find it, will you stay with love? Will love stay with you?

We wanted to write some things about why we came to the Vine House, and why we remain to this day with the same people after so many years. Well, God is love. Someone bothered to reach out a hand to an impoverished young man and give him hope. Not just once, but often. Only the human heart can be the vehicle for such a love. How else are we to know the Master?

~ David Jones (David Yonah)