So when Anna, our 9 year old, wanted to run home from the story which is about a mile away, I told her she could. I talked with her about which was she would go out of the parking lot and Anna seemed to know the way. I knew that I was checking out and would be getting in the car in the next few minutes. I reasoned that we would just follow her home in the car.
I was confident and had absolutely no worries. I stood in line and patiently waited to check out. When I returned to the car, Aaron said that he had seen Anna and that she was heading the wrong way out of the parking lot. I started to worry just a tad but rationalized that she was going to the corner with the stop light and was going to cross the street at the light.
We pulled out of the parking lot and looked up and down the street. There was no Anna. We headed home and still didn’t see her. We turned around and went down the road the other way. Still no Anna in sight. We thought that maybe she was crossing through the yards like she did when they walked home from camp. I was starting to get more and more worried. We traced the route that she would have taken if she cut through the yards. No Anna. My panic level was simply rising and rising. I was ready to call everyone I knew and have them start looking. I was thinking about all the places that she could be.
My cell phone rang. It was Anna. I could tell that she was scared. She was crying and I could barely understand her. She was at the grocery store.
We immediately turned around and headed there. As far as I was concerned, we couldn’t get there fast enough. I barely let Aaron get the car stopped before I hopped and out and went looking for her. She was sitting on the park bench outside the store. It was as if I was in a slow motion replay. I could see her sitting there on the bench. She looked scared and so little. I was calling her name and she was looking around for me. She could hear me but wasn’t sure where I was. As soon as she saw me, she ran to me and buried her head in my chest and hugged me. I couldn’t even speak to her for a moment. I just held on to her. She was fine. She had run the wrong way out of the parking lot. I took her face in my hands and I told her that I would have never stopped looking for her. I was okay. She was back with me. Not out in the world alone.
As I replayed this event over and over in my mind, one parable kept coming to mind.
What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture and go after the one which is lost until he finds it?
5“When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.
6“And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’
Luke 15:4-7
That parable really hit home today. I would have looked forever for Anna. I would have searched high and low and spared no expense to find her.
Sometimes we run the wrong way on purpose and sometimes we let the things of this world distract us and we find ourselves running in the wrong the direction. Sometimes we convince ourselves that the way we are running is the right way. But no matter why we end up lost, there is always someone out there looking for us. A God so loving that he never gives up. No matter what we have done, no matter how dirty we have got along the road he is looking. No matter how long we are lost and no matter how dirty we’ve gotten while we were lost, he always celebrates our being found.
There is nothing as sweet as resting my head on God’s chest when he has found me. When I have humbled myself enough to call out and let myself be found, I have never been more content, more relieved. He has taken my face into his hands and said, “I will never quit looking for you. I will never forsake you.”
I am his. I am a prized possession and so are you. He will never quit looking for us when we lose our way.
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