Lost and Found

Rummaging the trunk of my truck for something the other day, I found a crumpled sheet of paper. Immediately, I realized that it was the poster for when we’d lost our dog, Scooter. Both our dogs jumped the invisible fence and were gone for a couple of hours. We found Maggie (always the instigator but the first to also ask forgiveness--but that’s a blog for another time), but Scooter was gone. I went to my computer, got the cutest pictures of him I could find and made a bunch of posters. Then we went to surrounding neighborhoods and began to staple them to street poles and tape them to road signs.

After we’d put up several posters, I got out of the car to post one on a stop sign. There was another lost dog sign, so I began taping ours right under the other one. When I looked closer, though, I realized that the one above ours was a “FOUND DOG” poster. Then I realized it was a picture of Scooter!

When I saw that poster in my trunk, it occurred to me that at the moment we are willing to put up a “poster” that we are lost in life, God has already put up the poster that He has found us. The “found” poster is already in place before we get out the tape and staples. It’s nailed to something called The Cross, but it takes our being willing to admit our lostness to reveal the fact that we’ve already been found by the One who truly knows who and where we are at every moment.

Jesus said it best in Luke 19 after a short fella named Zacchaeus climbed up in a tree to place his “LOST MAN” poster above where Jesus was walking. After supper, Jesus said, “For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost.” (Luke 19:10b).

Jesus is the finder of lost people, no matter how far off we have wandered. He came to restore and reclaim.

And just in case you're wondering... lost here doesn't connote "lost cause."  It means "missing and valuable."