I am a little late on the whole LOST phenomenon. My wife and I never watch an episode until this year. Stop what you are thinking. We did not start watching season six without watching all of the other seasons. We started from the beginning with DVD’s. Then we watched seasons four and five on Hulu. Finally we were able to watch season six on our Apple TV. It took us about nine weeks to get through all six seasons. I am pretty sure we watched way too much television during in the last weeks. To say the least my wife and I were entertained, kept on the edge of our seats and surprised during the series. While watching I learned or was reminded of a few things. After you read my five things comment and tell me what you learned from the show:

  1. Water MUST be administered orally after any injury: This was true for almost any injury during the show. If you were shot in the arm, “Hurry, go get him some water!” If you were knocked unconscious, “Hurry, go get her some water!” If you have just been pulled out of the ocean and are unconscious because you almost drowned… the list goes on. If you are injured you need to drink water no matter what. Now this may not be true but it made me laugh during the show. If you think about your spiritual life what was the one symbol that was able to wash away sin? Water at baptism. It is used to symbolize the cleansing of our soul. Most of us were probably baptized as infants and we only had original sin. If you were baptized at an older age you had original sin and any other sin washed clean. It didn’t matter what it was water during baptism is a cure all!
  2. No one wants to hear what they can’t do: I wish I kept a running tally of how many times someone said “Don’t tell me what I can’t do!” during the show. Many characters said this on the show and it got a little cliche but I thought a little more about this phrase. Isn’t this what we think whenever someone tells us that we can’t do something. No one likes to hear this. It is important however, to understand what our limits or weaknesses are. Knowing these can help us become strong and more faithful Christians. It is hard to hear them sometimes but it is necessary to know what our limitations and weaknesses are in order to grow.
  3. It can take a long time to truly know someone: During the show we had a lot of people that were forced to build relationships with people that, in normal circumstances they would not. This was an interesting dynamic. As new characters came into play many relationships were shaken and trust was shifted from character to character. You think that you knew and understood a character and quickly they would do something that you never thought they would do and you were disappointed. This can happen often in our lives with people that we choose to have any kind of relationship with. It is important to take the time to truly get to know the people that we keep close to us.
  4. Time travel can harm you: In the show there was some time traveling going on that made the timetable really confusing at times. Because of the time travel some of the characters started to get headaches, nosebleeds, become disoriented and die. We time travel everyday. We think about things in the past all the time. We think about how things would be different if we did something better. We dwell on what has gone by. We also worry about what is going to happen in the future. We get anxious about decisions that we have to make, presentations, tests and so on. We must be prepared but dwelling on these can be harmful to our present. By worrying about the past and the future we can miss out on today. We can’t change what has happened in the past. We can learn from it but we can’t change it. We can predict what may happen in the future but there are no guarantees. God will take care of the what is coming ahead. A balance of learning from our past and preparing for the future can be done today. Use what has been learned from the past to prepare today for the future. If you have classwork or a project due make a checklist of things that need to be done fore it. A good friend of mine, Kelly Croy (http://www.kellycroy.com), always uses notecards to write down what needs to be done today. Take his advice!
  5. It is not necessarily our job to understand: The lack of explanation of many things drove me crazy sometimes. People would question each other all the time and show their lack of trust in decisions a lot during the show. Things would happen and they would have to know why all the time. Sometimes God lets things happen in our lives and we don’t know why. Sometimes he gives us explanations and other times he does not. It is not our job to understand why but it is our job to follow what God has called us to do. It is our job to go with what God has given us. It is our job to trust in Him. Putting our full trust in God is a difficult task and I have issues with it sometimes. It is like jumping in a pool on a summer day. You know you will be fine if you just jump in but you know it will be cold at first. You think it will be a good idea to ease into the pool but that just prolongs the coldness. If you simply “jump” and trust in God you will be okay and God will get you where you need to be.

Comment and tell me what you have learned from LOST.