Show Me What I’m Looking For

Take a look at the music video “Show Me What I’m Looking For” by Carolina Liar.

The video begins in the disheveled room of a cheap hotel in Atlantic City. Throughout an oppressively dark night, a long-haired man walks through the city and sings against the backdrop of images from his sordid life: a used lover, burlesque dancers, casinos, slot machines, an arcade, and a carnival. Everything we see is lit by the neon light of a superficial world.

The people we see are caught in a similarly self-destructive path, but without the singer’s apparent awakening to the purposelessness of his life. He is a sort of “prodigal son” who has strayed into the mire of a miserable existence that offers no escape. He knows how far he has fallen and regret consumes him. We hear this throughout the song when he confesses his sinful condition: “I’m wrong,… I’m lost,…I’m finding it hard to resist,…I’ve learned to love abuse…”

Our human nature is a sinful one that compels us toward behavior that hurts other people and that is ultimately self-destructive. We compulsively repeat behavior that brings ephemeral relief through illusory and short-lived joy. This relief comes at the cost of unbearable guilt or, in the case of a person whose persistent sin has “seared”, or deadened his conscience it comes in the form of a misdirected and messed-up life. Even someone as close to God as the Apostle Paul struggled with the tendency to do what God disapproves. He wrote, “That which I would not, that do I do.”

If this were the end of the story, we would be pathetically lost and without hope, as our singer appears to be. But there is something within us, some vestigial image of the God who created us, that can be touched by the Spirit of the same God in an appeal to return to our true home and to our true self. We hear the singer cry out with an awakening sense that there is more to life than what he has experienced. He sings this earnest refrain that many people feel but never express:

Save me, I’m lost
Oh Lord, I’ve been waiting for you
I’ll pay any cost
Save me from being confused
Show me what I’m looking for

Near the end of the video, the dawn has lightened the night sky as we see the silhouette of teens playing cheerfully under the boardwalk. They seem to be celebrating the coming day, unaware that the singer stands as an aloof observer. Does he long to reclaim the carefree innocence of his youth?

And then, as the chorus swells, we see that the sun is rising on the singer while he walks on a pristine beach. All the false glitter of the neon night has been washed away by the new day’s light. Even the surrounding city looks transformed by the renewing sunrise. This emboldens him with confidence in singing again the now hopeful chorus, “Save me, I’m lost…”

Who will find him on that beach, alone, crying out for a savior? He is so close to finding the help he needs. Will anyone show him what he is looking for?

• Will you show him the Savior?

What about the woman behind you in the grocery check-out line?

• Is she quietly singing the same song: “Save me, I’m lost”?

Are you listening to the people you work with?

• Maybe one of them is awakening to a need that he hasn’t felt before: “Oh Lord, I’ve been waiting for you…”

Your neighbor might be withdrawing from contact because of the darkness that has clouded her mind.

• She might be saying to herself: “Save me from being confused…”

Will you show them what they are looking for?

• Lord, help me to see beneath the false smile that covers a hurting soul.

• Lord, help me to hear the awkward tone of a voice that avoids revealing a wounded heart.

• Lord, help me to be attuned to the deeper, heartfelt needs of those who are around me within my reach. Help me to be an example of your loving grace to them and to show them that what they are looking for is within their reach, and that he—Jesus—is already reaching out to them.