I've been making a lot of comments about Charlie Sheen on my Facebook the past couple of days. You'd have to live in a cave not to have followed the story. It has been ubiquitous to say the least.
But in case you do live in a cave, here it is in a nutshell. Sheen has, in the course of a week, alienated most of his friends, had his publicist quit, his top rated tv show canceled, and lost custody of his children all the while saying some of the craziest, most delusional things ever heard on national television. His bitterness is evident even as he declares he is a "winner" with "tiger blood" and "Adonis DNA" living with porn star "goddesses" flying around the world in private jets.
Why would a man with all of this be so bitter and delusional?
I believe I know the answer. Sheen has finally realized that the world has been lying to him all of his life about where to find fulfillment and it's impossible to hide the bitter disappointment and anger he feels. He's tried money, women, whiskey, drugs, and fame and they are all empty. He's worshiped at the feet of all of the major idols of our popular culture and they can't fill the whole he has in his heart.
It's a story that I know a little too well (though thankfully not nearly to the same extent as Charlie). I had bought in to the idea that what I needed to be happy, accepted, and fulfilled was success, money, status, and popularity. I've made many of the same mistakes in the wake of success as Sheen has. I've looked for meaning in whiskey, women, and money/success and having experienced more than my fair share of all three, found them sorely lacking. It was only when I turned my heart and life completely over to Jesus Christ that I found any measure of contentment and meaning in my existence. I came to know the truth in Christ's promise that He had come so that we may have a truly abundant life (John 10:10) and it has made all the difference.
The sad truth is that the only difference between Charlie Sheen and a lot of us is that he can afford to make mistakes on a grander scale than we can. We meet people everyday with the same basic problems Charlie Sheen has. They are looking for someone or something to help them make sense of life in all the wrong places. The lost, hopeless, bitter, depressed and disillusioned are all around us. It's a whole lot more common than you think.
It's hard not to laugh at Charlie Sheen's nonsense. Lord knows I have. But Charlie needs prayer. Instead of being filled with tiger blood, Charlie Sheen needs to be filled with the Holy Ghost. And we all need to see this saga for exactly what it is, a textbook example of the destruction and despair that come from believing the lies the world tells us. Proverbs 14:12 describes it perfectly, "There is a way that seems right to a man but its end is the way of death". Let's hope that Charlie stops going down this road before he proves that verse to be true.
