Does that mean the Lord doesn’t care about those items or my feelings? Of course not. But just like not everything that is lost returns, not every person who is lost is saved. Yet we trust that we have a Shepherd who deeply loves His flock…who turns the proverbial house and yard and aerial studio upside down to pursue His sheep.
I hate lost things. Nothing drives me crazier than not being able to find the remote control when it was JUST there. Or that pair of earrings I know I just wore!
Thankfully, I’m good at finding things, too. Several years ago, my husband realized he had no more boxers left. They were suddenly gone. We racked our brains, thinking maybe he left one pair at the gym when he changed or possibly left a pair behind in the hotel room from that recent work trip. But multiple pairs? Then, this thought dawned on me. (Thanks, Holy Spirit!) A few weeks prior, we had replaced our dryer and put the old one in the storage barn in the backyard of our rented house. I ran to the barn, threw open the old dryer door, and sure enough—there was an entire load of socks and underwear.
Another time, I lost a sports bra. (We apparently have a theme here!) I was just as befuddled as when my husband lost his unmentionables. How does one lose a bra? I never changed at the gym, so it made no sense. Imagine my surprise (and the surprise of the poor movers) when on Moving Day into our new house, I saw my sports bra lying in the middle of our living room. Apparently, months prior, it had fallen behind a dresser drawer, so when the movers took the drawers out to hoist the giant dresser upstairs, it fell loose. (Imagine four grown men politely pretending this obvious garment was not lying in the middle of the room!)
There have been other stories, too, less comical ones, in which the Lord has returned my lost item. When I was a young adult, I worked at our local newspaper. One day, I wore a magnetic clasp bracelet my grandmother had given me, with multiple silver hearts on a black band. Mid-day, I realized the bracelet was no longer on my wrist. My coworkers and I thoroughly searched my cubicle and beyond, to no avail. Needless to say, I was distraught. I prayed, begging the Lord to have it turn up. Sure enough, when I went to my lunch break that afternoon, the bracelet was lying on the floorboard of my car. Yay! But get this—I hadn’t been in my car since losing the bracelet. I would have chalked it up to my remembering incorrectly that I had worn into the building that day, but my coworkers and I all distinctly remembered them complimenting my bracelet when they saw me that morning. And I hadn’t returned to my car since then. But God!
Another time, back in our rental house, our beloved Schnauzer got out of our backyard. He was wearing a regular collar with an ID tag and a flea collar, but the entire night went by, and we received no phone calls from anyone who found him. We drove around the neighborhood for hours, calling and whistling. No sign of him. Once again, my entire family was distraught. School started the next day, and I didn’t want my girls distracted and upset at the start of their year. So I prayed big faith prayers with them, claiming outright that I knew the Lord could perform miracles, and if He was so inclined, He could teleport our puppy right back to our yard. The next morning, my husband found our Schnauzer sitting happily in the middle of the backyard, sans flea collar. I don’t have proof, but I’m pretty sure he might have been the first Schnauzer to have ever teleported!
Recently, my teen daughter misplaced a necklace. It had been a gift from someone and carried a lot of sentimental value. We looked everywhere—the house, the front, and back yards, the car floorboards, including places it couldn’t possibly be. She also had her friends searching their houses, even though our timeline of when the necklace went missing meant it had to be somewhere in our house or yard. Once again, I pleaded with the Lord to return this irreplaceable item and asked my best prayer partners to also pray. Four days later, my daughter’s aerial coach found the necklace in her studio, under a mat against the mirrored wall—once again, somewhere that made no sense.
The Lord is so generous, isn’t He? I think in a lot of these situations, it’s because He also hates lost things. He has the heart to seek them out. And sometimes, in His grace and mercy, He shows us that heart by returning jewelry and puppies in order to reflect the bigger picture of His passion for the lost.
One time on my lunch break, I encountered a woman in a city park, running a metal detector over the playground sand. I’d seen her multiple days in a row, ambling lazily along, beep-beep-beeping all the way. Finally, I couldn’t resist striking up a conversation and asking her what she was looking for. Her answer? Lost things. For some of them, she posted signs about if she sensed they were valuable or sentimental in hopes of uniting them to their owner. Other things she kept and repurposed. The poetry of that moment stuck with me for years. Here’s something even more beautiful—a Scripture passage that never fails to bring me to tears. In Matthew 18:12-14 (ESV), Jesus tells the parable of the lost sheep.
“What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.”
Sheep, if you remember, aren’t known for being particularly bright. They get themselves into all sorts of trouble—usually out of bull-headedness or naivety. (Sound familiar?) Regular shepherd in any field on any given day have their work cut out for them…our own great Shepherd even more so! But still, He comes after us. Of course, not everything I lose turns up. I also have a few stories of things that never made it back to me once lost, such as a pair of earrings purchased on a cruise, a book I really wanted to re-read, and on a much grander scale—my first marriage.
Does that mean the Lord doesn’t care about those items or my feelings? Of course not. But just like not everything that is lost returns, not every person who is lost is saved. Yet we trust that we have a Shepherd who deeply loves His flock…who turns the proverbial house, yard, and aerial studio upside down to pursue His sheep.
Do you hate lost things too? It’s because you’re made in His image. You’re wired that way after His own heart. And in that light, I can only pray that my heart will be as passionate about bringing in lost sheep as it is for bringing lost puppies and jewelry.
Photo Credit: ©Getty Images/baona
