Oh no! I'm lost!

I was with my Dad and brother. I was around 5 or 6 years old. We were in Sears at Northpark Mall. I was following them, but looking at the new Matchbox car my Dad had just bought me. I looked up and they were not in front of me. Oh No! Where did they go! I started walking fast to catch up. Surely they were just around the corner. No! They were nowhere in sight. I had no idea where they went, which direction they went, or the next store in our shopping adventure. I walked around the mall for days looking for them (Okay, maybe not days). I couldn’t find them. I would never see my family or friends again. I was doomed to stay in the mall for the rest of my life. How would I survive? That was it, I couldn’t take it anymore. I stopped right in front of Woolworth’s (a store that you probably never heard of because it’s old) sat down in the middle of the mall and cried. I didn’t just cry, I balled like a …well, like a lost 5 year old. A young couple who were in Woolworth’s heard me crying and came out to find out what was wrong. I told them that my mean Dad and brother didn’t love me anymore and had abandoned me. I told them how they devised a cruel plan to buy me a toy so that I would be distracted while they sneakily ran away, and now I was going to have to live in the mall for the rest of my life, and my name was Hansel and I didn’t know where my sister, Gretel, was …wait, that’s not how it went. Oh yeah, I just told them I was lost. They comforted me and told me they would help me find them. About that time a mall security guard (no, his name was not Paul Blart) came driving up in a golf cart. They told him what was going on. He put me in his security golf cart and told me we would drive around looking for my Dad and brother. It wasn’t long before my Dad spotted me and realized he was caught and would have to take me home. Just kidding. He called my name and came running to the police security golf cart, very happy to have finally found me. He and my brother had been looking for ME a long time.

Madison knows this feeling from when she got lost at Medieval Times. She was distracted. I thought she was with your mother, but no, I had LEFT her. She was afraid and crying, and a lady from one of the shops came out to help her. She even got a free toy out of the ordeal. And I know how my Dad felt when I discovered she was gone. It was horrible! As soon as I realized she was gone I was going to do whatever it took to find her and get her back, and the joy I felt when we found her was beyond description.

Funny how we can get distracted by “shiny things” and lose sight of The Lord. We can even focus too much on things The Lord has given us. The good thing is He never loses sight of us (Jer. 31:10, “…He will watch over his people like a shepherd watches over his flock.”). Unlike my Dad and brother, He always knows where we are. He knows immediately when we are “lost”, and will do whatever it takes to get us to look up and follow Him. He might even send other people into our lives such as a young couple, or a cool security mall cop with a cool, police security golf cart, to help us find our way back to Him (John 10:27, “My sheep listen to my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”).

The best thing to do is never take our eyes off of Him and then we won’t get distracted (1 Cor. 7:35, “I am saying this for your benefit, not to place a limitation on you, but so that without distraction you may give notable and constant service to the Lord.”) and become lost, but when we do (and we will) we need to immediately look up and search for Him (Jer. 12:13, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”). We’ll find Him right there beside us.

Love Ya,
Dad