Lost

I’ve never watched the show Lost, but I know it’s a cult classic.

I wonder if it’s because all of us can identify with the feeling of being lost somehow?

I have been really lost three times in my life.

1.  When I was about 4-years-old I hid underneath the supermarket magazine rack reading a comic book.  My mom lost track of me (possibly because I was deliberately hiding) and when I surfaced from the comic book I was alone.

2.  Around that same age I was inside our church while my dad went outside to finish business and the pastor locked the building up.  Except I was still inside.  I was frantically trying to decide if I could live off of communion wafers until Sunday services and screaming my head off in the minutes that passed before my dad realized the mistake.

3.  When I was about 8-years-old I went to the county fair with my family.  There, in the rabbit barn, I rounded the corner, reached up, and grabbed the hand I thought belonged to my dad.  When I grabbed it, though, it wasn’t my dad’s hand at all!  It was a stranger!  I was so confused and scared – and I couldn’t immediately see my family.  I was certain my life was over and wet my pants a little.

Recently I was driving across country roads in a minivan caravan (a story for another time) and I realized if I lost the line of family cars I would be completely lost.

Right about then we drove by a church.  It had an Easter service advertisement and included something about finding the “lost.”

For the first time in my adult life I realized why Christians are asked to find the “lost.”

There are people across the world dying emotionally.  They are living in their lives in the grips of the amazing, gut-wrenching, discombobulating fear I experienced as a child.

And they don’t know any better because they are lost.

My moments of being lost as a child still make my clench up inside with remembered angst.

But I was never really lost in each of those situations.  (And my parents were looking for me along the way.)

Today, if I see a lost child in a store I do everything I can to rearrange my timeline and comfort them, listen to their story, and try to reunite them with their family.

My goodness, if I see someone wandering around Wal-Mart I’m more than happy to point them in the right direction to find their product!

Why should I do less for adults who are disconnected from their Creator?

How can I do less for a Creator who is eager to find his children and may use me to aid the reunion?

Because it doesn’t fit my timeline?  Because it makes me uncomfortable?

Because I don’t remember what it is to be consumed by fear and uncertainty?

How dare I sit in my comfort zone and refuse to do anything to love on others?

If you’re lost… please send me a message to ask about it! There is a better way to live life than filled with fear and uncertainty. There is a Creator whose hands are more than large enough to shelter you. There is a loving parent who has never lost track of where you are, even when you are deliberately hiding.

I’d love to tell you about it!

What do you do when you see someone who is lost?