The Lost Get Found

Yesterday I discovered that I had misplaced the cd-rom that contains our children's church curriculum. I had every other disc in the pack, with all the demonstrations and sound effects and what not, but without the cd-rom it didn't matter. I needed it to get Julie the materials for this Sunday because she is filling in for me while I'm out of town. At first I was slightly annoyed that I couldn't find it. I don't usually misplace things. In fact, I'm the one people usually come to to find things. I've just always been pretty good at finding things. Can't tell you how many times I found my roommates id card when it was missing (always check under your keyboard!). I didn't have a lot of time to look for the disc at first, so I checked a few places I thought I might have set it and decided to come back to it later. I went to church last night and as I was there I was running through everywhere I thought it might be. I got home and I tore my house apart looking for it. I moved furniture, I lifted every piece of paper that was anywhere. I looked under every table, dresser, desk...nothing. At this point I was very frustrated (side note: Roscoe was being very hateful during this time which was not helping). I finally gave up and went to bed, knowing that I'd absolutely have to find it when I got home from work today. Again I tore my house apart, I looked everywhere I'd looked last night, in every bag I own, in every drawer. I even looked in rooms I KNEW it was not. It was nowhere to be found. At this point I'm ready to cry. I have felt so absentminded and forgetful lately, and that is frustrating to me, because I used to be able to say I had a mind "like a steel trap" haha. I blame stress and lack of sleep for my current state. I decided to drive down to the church to see if for some reason I'd left it there, even though I was 99.9% positive I'd never taken it to the church. At this time I'm also wondering why on earth this is happening. I believe everything happens for a reason, so a lot of times I find myself wondering "what is the point in this?" On my way to the church I thought to check in the box of VBS stuff that has been in the backseat of my car for over a week now. It ocurred to me that I'd taken the cd out of my computer, but couldn't remember where I'd set it after that. I got to the church, pulled the box up in the seat next to me, and there it was in the case with my VBS clipart discs. I felt a little foolish for how frantic I'd gotten over such a small thing, and I think that was part of the purpose..need to work on keeping my cool. However, as I drove back home (another side note: I did have some donations to drop off at the church for Cinderella's Closet, so my drive down there wasn't totally pointless :) ) I was reminded of the story of the prodigal son. My senior year of high school (sometimes seems like it was yesterday, and sometimes seems like it was FOREVER ago), my youth group went on a trip to Ibiza, Spain with other youth groups in the area for spring break. The speaker that week talked about the woman that loses her one coin, the shepherd that loses his one sheep, and then the main story for the week was the prodigal son. The woman has ten coins, but she loses one and pretty much tears her house apart until she finds it, THEN she calls her friends and has a party because she found her coin. The shepherd has 100 sheep, and one goes missing. He goes out, risks his life, and doesn't return until he has found that one sheep, then he calls his friends and celebrates with them over finding his lost sheep. In the story of the prodigal son a rich man's son asks for his inheritance early. The son goes out and wastes it, eventually ending up eating the slop that pigs eat. He realizes that servants in his father's home eat better than that, so he returns home hoping to get a job as a servant. Instead his father is waiting there with open arms and throws a huge party because his lost son has returned home. What if we put that sort of intensity and emotion into seeking out the lost of this world? One of the very last things Jesus left us with was the Great Commission: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit..." (Matthew 28: 19) I was about to cry over a lost cd...what about the people that die daily who are lost for eternity. Think about losing your phone, or your keys, or your wallet...how do you feel when you realize it's lost? How do you feel when you're searching for it? And then how do you feel when you find it? I said earlier that I've been feeling very absentminded, and my thoughts have just been very confused lately, but this was something I thought about very clearly and it kinda shocked me. So, what if we start seeing lost people like we see something we value when it's lost? That requires a whole different way of thinking, but I think it's an extremely important change to make. By the way, all those parables about the lost items are in Luke 15 if you want to check them out!