The Precious Lost

Recently I was looking for something I had been given as a gift. This thing was very precious to me, and I thought I knew where it was, but it wasn’t there. I began asking around, but no one had any answers. I was absolutely baffled and at a complete loss. The worse part was that I didn’t even realize it was gone until I couldn’t find it. Few times have I been so devastated or regretful.

The next morning during my quiet time it came to me that God knows all too well what it’s like to have precious things that are lost—and to have no one looking. He is not slow in keeping His promise but is patient, not wanting anyone to perish, but all to come to repentance (2 Pet. 3:9). There are lost people everywhere who are precious to Him, and most of us act as if we don’t even know they’re missing.

As of now, I haven’t found my lost thing, but this incident did give me a new prayer: “Make me as devastated for your lost people, O Lord, as I am for this.”

The whole situation gave me a glimpse into what God feels and His devastated heart as the people He loves (Jn. 3:16) persist in turning their backs on Him. Unlike me, He didn’t lose them; they walked away. It wasn’t that He was careless. They (and we) choose what is right in our own eyes. We rebel against Him.

In addition, we are not choice-less, inanimate objects. God is sovereign yet has given us free will. We have a choice when it comes to whether we want to be found.

At the same time, while there is biblical evidence for the need to make a decision (Jn. 1:12), God is also sovereign. As Jesus says in John 6, “no one can come to Me unless the Father has enabled them.” Yes, we are lost, but no one is too lost to be found by Him. It doesn’t matter, like my lost thing, how long they’ve been gone. We can rejoice with the angels (Lk. 15:10) in the reality that God’s sovereignty will prevail.

I recently read Ezekiel 34, in which God condemns the under-shepherds of Israel. They have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. They have not “brought back the strays or searched for the lost” but have ruled them harshly and brutally. As a result, they were “scattered because there was no shepherd” and became food for the wild animals. And then He says, “My sheep wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. They were scattered over the whole earth, and no one searched or looked for them” (5-6).

No one searched or looked for them. Let us not be so naïve but pray, “Make us devastated, O Lord, for your precious lost.”