“Rejoice with Me, for I have found my sheep which was lost.” Luke 15:6 NKJV
A single, simple wrong turn is when and where being lost begins.
My thoughts and comments today are about “lost and found.”
Lost is not a good experience. No one intends to be lost; it just happens. Forget about asking direction along the way; most directions only make sense to people already familiar with where they are and where they are going. One error in direction changes and affects every turn that follows. Have you noticed how difficult it is to find your way when you are lost? Forget finding your intended destination; you are fortunate to even find your original point of departure. A single, simple wrong turn is where being lost begins. The unfamiliar twists and turns quickly leave you disoriented, a little panicked, and eventually more lost than when you first noticed.
My wife, Gayle, is a happy wanderer, never lost; she just discovers new places she has not been. My travel philosophy is simple: “The shortest distance between two points is the way you know.” Recently, “discovering new places” happened unintentionally to me in an unfamiliar city. It was dark; I was alone; I was a little lost. But is there any such thing as being just “a little lost?” My misadventure began when I confidently, but incorrectly, turned the opposite direction on a freeway than I should have turned. Seeing nothing familiar after a few minutes, I eventually realized my mistake and found a way to reverse my mistake.
In life, too many people don’t realize they are lost spiritually. And some have an uneasy sense of their lostness but still don’t change their course, continuing further and further from their intended destiny. The Apostle Paul reasoned, “If our Gospel be hid, it is hidden to them that are lost: in whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, Who is the image of God, should shine unto them . . For God, Who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” 2 Corinthians 4:3-4/6 KJV.
Here’s the good news; Jesus is drawn to lost people; the lost are His specialty. Jesus said of Himself, “The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” Luke 19:10 NKJV. I love Heaven’s proactive initiative in that description of my Savior. More than saving those who knowingly come to Him, Jesus seeks those ignorantly lost in their spiritual blindness. An entire chapter of the Bible is about the Savior seeking and finding the lost. See Luke 15. One author calls that chapter “the Bible’s Lost and Found Column.”
Jesus told the stories of a shepherd seeking his lost sheep, a woman searching for her a lost coin, and a father welcoming home his prodigal son. Jesus’ stories establish this: you are greatly valued and God will go to any length to bring you home. Unintentionally, the sheep wandered away, becoming separated from the shepherd; the coin was lost through neglect, by no choice of its own; the son became lost when lured away from his father by his own heart. Whatever the individual cause, they were each as equally lost, in need of a Savior’s help. Somewhere in Jesus’ stories there could be a description of you. What beautiful examples of the One who will “search carefully until [He] finds it. And when [He] has found it, calls [others] together, saying, ‘Rejoice with Me.’” Luke 15:8-9 NKJV.
My prayer for you today is that you always remember how to find your way home.