The path to our destination is not always a straight one. We go
down the wrong road, we get lost, we turn back. Maybe it doesn't
matter which road we embark on. Maybe what matters is that we embark.
--Barbara Hall, Northern Exposure, Rosebud, 1993
In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within
a dark wood where the straight way was lost.
--Dante Alighieri (1265 - 1321), The Divine Comedy
All that is gold does not glitter; not all those that wander are
lost.
--J. R. R. Tolkien (1892 - 1973), The Fellowship of the Ring, 1954
We're not lost. We're locationally challenged.
--John M. Ford
The only paradise is paradise lost.
--Marcel Proust (1871 - 1922)
If
I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)
THREE
STORIES ABOUT BEING LOST
Luke 15:1-32 (Message Bible)
By this time a lot of men and women of doubtful reputation were hanging
around Jesus, listening intently. The Pharisees and religion scholars
were not pleased, not at all pleased. They growled, "He takes
in sinners and eats meals with them, treating them like old friends."
Their grumbling triggered this story.
"Suppose one of you had a hundred
sheep and lost one. Wouldn't you leave the ninety-nine
in the wilderness and go after the lost one until you found it? When
found, you can be sure you would put it across your shoulders, rejoicing,
and when you got home call in your friends and neighbors, saying,
'Celebrate with me! I've found my lost sheep!' Count on it—there's
more joy in heaven over one sinner's rescued life than over ninety-nine
good people in no need of rescue.
"Or imagine a woman who has ten
coins and loses one. Won't she light a lamp and scour
the house, looking in every nook and cranny until she finds it? And
when she finds it you can be sure she'll call her friends and neighbors:
'Celebrate with me! I found my lost coin!' Count on it—that's
the kind of party God's angels throw every time one lost soul turns
to God."
Then he said, "There was once a
man who had two sons. The younger said to his father,
'Father, I want right now what's coming to me.'
"So the father divided the property between them. It wasn't long
before the younger son packed his bags and left for a distant country.
There, undisciplined and dissipated, he wasted everything he had.
After he had gone through all his money, there was a bad famine all
through that country and he began to hurt. He signed on with a citizen
there who assigned him to his fields to slop the pigs. He was so hungry
he would have eaten the corncobs in the pig slop, but no one would
give him any.
"That brought him to his senses. He said, 'All those farmhands
working for my father sit down to three meals a day, and here I am
starving to death. I'm going back to my father. I'll say to him, Father,
I've sinned against God, I've sinned before you; I don't deserve to
be called your son. Take me on as a hired hand.' He got right up and
went home to his father.
"When he was still a long way off, his father saw him. His heart
pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him. The son started
his speech: 'Father, I've sinned against God, I've sinned before you;
I don't deserve to be called your son ever again.'
"But the father wasn't listening. He was calling to the servants,
'Quick. Bring a clean set of clothes and dress him. Put the family
ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Then get a grain-fed heifer
and roast it. We're going to feast! We're going to have a wonderful
time! My son is here—given up for dead and now alive! Given
up for lost and now found!' And they began to have a wonderful time.
"All this time his older son was out in the field. When the day's
work was done he came in. As he approached the house, he heard the
music and dancing. Calling over one of the houseboys, he asked what
was going on. He told him, 'Your brother came home. Your father has
ordered a feast—barbecued beef!—because he has him home
safe and sound.'
"The older brother stalked off in an angry sulk and refused to
join in. His father came out and tried to talk to him, but he wouldn't
listen. The son said, 'Look how many years I've stayed here serving
you, never giving you one moment of grief, but have you ever thrown
a party for me and my friends? Then this son of yours who has thrown
away your money on whores shows up and you go all out with a feast!'
"His father said, 'Son, you don't understand. You're with me
all the time, and everything that is mine is yours— but this
is a wonderful time, and we had to celebrate. This brother of yours
was dead, and he's alive! He was lost, and he's found!' "
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