When lost things get found!

We didn’t even know he was lost. It was hours later that we seen a familiar face on a post on facebook. Someone had found him and wanted to help get him home, where he belonged. Now before you panic that we misplaced a child and didn’t notice, it was our son’s favourite teddy, a bedraggled dog aptly named “Doggies”

Doggies was bought before our son was born, he is pretty special, so if he had been lost forever we all would have been sad. Thankfully we had been so busy at a fun night, our little boy was late to bed and too exhausted to notice Doggies was not in his bed.

We picked Doggies up the next day and we had one very happy little boy and two pretty relieved parents that we didn’t have to explain that Doggies was gone for good. He was so pleased he ran into the arms of the kind guy at the tyre shop who had kept Doggies safe.

I got thinking afterwards how lucky we were that the guys in the garage didn’t just find him and put him aside. They took his photo, they shared him on facebook, they asked their friends to share it, all in the hope that we would see it, which thank goodness we did.

Doggies was saved because someone was looking out for lost things. Someone found a lost thing and realised it was worth more than a worn out stuffed toy. That it was a beloved friend to a little boy somewhere.

Remind you of anyone? It reminds me of my Father.

I was a lost thing once. We are all lost things, lost people, but thankfully we are also found things. Found people. We are not left to be lost to the wilderness. We are not taken at face value. We may be tattered, ragged and bruised but the one who finds us knows how valuable and loved we are. What a precious thing! To say, as we often sing in the age old hymn, “I once was lost, but now I’m found”. It doesn’t matter how lost we get either, God never gives up. He wanted so much to find us that he sent his Son to live among us, as the greatest finder of all. It was Jesus himself who taught that wonderful parable of the lost sheep. One sheep in one hundred is still worth hunting night and day to find and bring home safely.

I was lost once, but now I am found. I am more than found. I am saved! More than that again, I am called now to be a finder of lost things, and so are you! For when we become Christians, when we choose to let ourselves be found, we each have a story to tell. Poor Doggies didn’t even know he was lost, mostly because he is a teddy, but like Doggies, sometimes we don’t know we are lost until we are found.

I noticed when my little boy got his beloved Doggies back, he held onto him all the more tightly, just like when we allow ourselves to be found by our Saviour Jesus, He holds on tight, and when we are at risk of drifting away, often without our realising, He sends us people who find lost things. Take a moment to think about who has helped find you in the difficult times. So, can he send you to be a finder of lost things?