I’ve only had this phenomenon happen with one of my children…and I’m so thankful it has ONLY been one. It’s ‘the blanket’! You know, like Linus on Charlie Brown, the little boy who always carried this little blue blanket wherever he went. In a pinch, the blanket could be converted into a hat, or nest, or…oh, all kinds of things.
Know what I mean? My son, Samuel, has one of those blankets…and come to think of it, it’s blue too. That blanket is one of his most treasured possessions. If he gets hurt…he wants ‘his blanket’; if he goes to bed…he wants ‘his blanket’; if we go on a long road trip….you guessed it, he wants his blanket (and a big cup of juice 🙂
So recently, he misplaced his blanket….just before bedtime too. Yikes! And what do you think happened? Did my husband and I tenderly explain that he’d have to find it in the morning? Did Samuel respond in the gentlest, most submissive of ways and agree passively to sleep without it? NOT!!
My husband and I scoured the house! We enlisted the help of our oldest three kids. We searched every known and unknown possibility looking for that blanket…when finally, we found it under a couch cushion.
What was it worth to find that blanket? A LOT! At the time, it was worth a good night’s sleep, peace of mind, avoiding a meltdown….right? To a tired set of parents, the stakes were high!
(Needless to say, my youngest has never slept with the same object twice. I’m not going through that again 🙂
In several different places throughout the New Testament, Jesus gave examples of people looking for ‘lost’ items. For instance, there’s the story of the lost sheep, lost coin, and lost son (Prodigal Son).
When something is very important to us, we will take whatever cost there is to find it. To use the example of the ‘lost sheep’, the shepherd leaves the comfort of his home, the safety of ‘known countryside’, and clarity of daylight, to seek after this one lost lamb. The life of that lamb was worth a great deal to the shepherd.
In the book of Jeremiah, God says “If you seek me, you will find me, when you search for me with all your heart.”
God isn’t lost. He’s always with us, but many times we don’t ‘see’ him. We get distracted by the business of life, or selfishness of your own desires or pursuits, and we lose focus on the what really matters.
Samuel’s blanket never left our house, although we were certain it had vanished from the face of the earth. In fact, most of the time it was directly under our…bottoms 🙂
God never leaves us, but he is calling us to ‘find’ more about Him; to discover the great riches of His love and learn from Him. Learning more about Him might cost you something too, but is ‘knowing more about Him’ worth the cost?
You are a treasure to Him. God will go to any lengths to rescue you…to find you…to restore you. In fact, he already has. He sacrificed His Son.
Thanks be to God, who loves us with an everlasting love and who always finds His lost lambs, no matter the cost.
Great post.Hey, I saw your post over on Faithwriters from a couple months back.did you ever find that local Christian writers group in JC? I’m looking for one as well.blessings,jo ann