Let me cry before You, O Lord. Give me understanding according to Your word! Let my plea come before You. Deliver me according to Your word. My lips will pour forth praise because You teach me Your statutes. My tongue will sing of Your word, for all Your commandments are right. Let Your hand be ready to help me, for I have chosen Your precepts. I long for Your salvation, O Lord, and Your law is my delight. Let my soul live and praise You, and let Your rules help me. I have gone astray like a lost sheep. Look for me, for I don't forget Your commandments. (Verses 169-176)
"What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly I say to you, he rejoices over it more than the ninety-nine that never went astray. So it is not the will of my Father in heaven that one of these little ones should perish." Jesus, Matthew 18
We gave our dogs away when we moved to Riverside, California, in 1976. Our daughters were still very young and missed their pets. In response to Heather's constant question about when we were going to get another dog, I answered an ad that promised a darling five-year-old Lhasa Apso named Sidney. It took some adjusting for him. He'd been with the other family since he was born. But we stroked him, brushed him, played with him and walked him...and fed him, I'm sure the important thing in his doggie mind. But that little mind couldn't figure out what happened when we went back to Texas for Christmas and left him in the hands of a neighborhood teenager who forgot to let him back into the house one afternoon. Sidney panicked. Big time. Left abandoned and alone, the dog pretty much climbed the low back fence and headed out only God knows where. Sidney certainly didn't.
We returned late in the evening from our Christmas trip to find our home devoid of dog. We all panicked. The lateness of the hour didn't keep me from calling the young woman, and, trying to control my racing heart, asking her, if, well, she had any idea where our dog might be. Lost. He was lost, she said. She'd looked everywhere. Called the pound. Sidney had a collar with his information on it. They'd called the former owner. This I found out after a sleepless night of worry and mounting guilt.
"We found him running along the freeway," the pound worker told me. Running back to his old home. That was the general direction of Sidney's escape route. Some interior guidance system or just coincidence. I don't know. But when I saw him, I was devastated. Our doggie's beautiful golden hair was matted and filled with burrs and tiny sticks. There was a bloodied bump on his head near his eye and he was shaking with fear. Quaking with fear. I couldn't tell if Sidney was glad to see me or not. He did recognize me and tried to wag his pathetic tail. All I could do was stand there and cry. Our little lost pet had been through the ringer. "Is he okay to hold?" I asked. "Is he...broken?"
"No, ma'am," replied the young man helping me with the paperwork. "The dog seems to have come through it okay."
I held Sidney in my arms to quiet the quivering of his little body and stroked him while he whined his grief. Lost, alone and disoriented, he'd taken quite a beating. I drove home with him in my lap, took him inside then and drew a warm bath. I cut the dried blood and matted hair from his face while he looked mournfully at me. I did all this with tears streaming down my face. I could only imagine what he'd seen for the week of his lost-ness.
I have been astray. Run away in pain unspeakable to God only knew where. A lost sheep. We will finally get caught in some bramble or other. Stuck there to wait for our salvation. Like the psalmist, I yelled, "Look for me! O, Jesus, look for me!"
If you think you've gone too far out. If you think He stopped caring about you years ago...or two minutes ago...you are wrong. If you ran in panic to another love. Drank from a wine goblet that has now turned your stomach and left you inebriated and confused. You are still worth finding. If you shook your fist in His face and left because you were disappointed, you are still loved, because Jesus doesn't want you to live or die without Him. The Good Shepherd knows His sheep by name (John 10) and gave His life to shepherd us home. Yes, Jesus will probably have to clean you up a bit. He might even remind you that staying near Him would be a good idea next time you are confused or heartbroken. But, trust me, He will bind up your broken heart and ease the quaking of your soul. Because He came to seek and to save what is lost. You may have gone a long way out...have a long way to go back...but you won't go it alone.
He will tend His flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs in His arms and carry them in His bosom, and gently lead those who are with young. Isaiah 40
"What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly I say to you, he rejoices over it more than the ninety-nine that never went astray. So it is not the will of my Father in heaven that one of these little ones should perish." Jesus, Matthew 18
We gave our dogs away when we moved to Riverside, California, in 1976. Our daughters were still very young and missed their pets. In response to Heather's constant question about when we were going to get another dog, I answered an ad that promised a darling five-year-old Lhasa Apso named Sidney. It took some adjusting for him. He'd been with the other family since he was born. But we stroked him, brushed him, played with him and walked him...and fed him, I'm sure the important thing in his doggie mind. But that little mind couldn't figure out what happened when we went back to Texas for Christmas and left him in the hands of a neighborhood teenager who forgot to let him back into the house one afternoon. Sidney panicked. Big time. Left abandoned and alone, the dog pretty much climbed the low back fence and headed out only God knows where. Sidney certainly didn't.
We returned late in the evening from our Christmas trip to find our home devoid of dog. We all panicked. The lateness of the hour didn't keep me from calling the young woman, and, trying to control my racing heart, asking her, if, well, she had any idea where our dog might be. Lost. He was lost, she said. She'd looked everywhere. Called the pound. Sidney had a collar with his information on it. They'd called the former owner. This I found out after a sleepless night of worry and mounting guilt.
"We found him running along the freeway," the pound worker told me. Running back to his old home. That was the general direction of Sidney's escape route. Some interior guidance system or just coincidence. I don't know. But when I saw him, I was devastated. Our doggie's beautiful golden hair was matted and filled with burrs and tiny sticks. There was a bloodied bump on his head near his eye and he was shaking with fear. Quaking with fear. I couldn't tell if Sidney was glad to see me or not. He did recognize me and tried to wag his pathetic tail. All I could do was stand there and cry. Our little lost pet had been through the ringer. "Is he okay to hold?" I asked. "Is he...broken?"
"No, ma'am," replied the young man helping me with the paperwork. "The dog seems to have come through it okay."
I held Sidney in my arms to quiet the quivering of his little body and stroked him while he whined his grief. Lost, alone and disoriented, he'd taken quite a beating. I drove home with him in my lap, took him inside then and drew a warm bath. I cut the dried blood and matted hair from his face while he looked mournfully at me. I did all this with tears streaming down my face. I could only imagine what he'd seen for the week of his lost-ness.
I have been astray. Run away in pain unspeakable to God only knew where. A lost sheep. We will finally get caught in some bramble or other. Stuck there to wait for our salvation. Like the psalmist, I yelled, "Look for me! O, Jesus, look for me!"
If you think you've gone too far out. If you think He stopped caring about you years ago...or two minutes ago...you are wrong. If you ran in panic to another love. Drank from a wine goblet that has now turned your stomach and left you inebriated and confused. You are still worth finding. If you shook your fist in His face and left because you were disappointed, you are still loved, because Jesus doesn't want you to live or die without Him. The Good Shepherd knows His sheep by name (John 10) and gave His life to shepherd us home. Yes, Jesus will probably have to clean you up a bit. He might even remind you that staying near Him would be a good idea next time you are confused or heartbroken. But, trust me, He will bind up your broken heart and ease the quaking of your soul. Because He came to seek and to save what is lost. You may have gone a long way out...have a long way to go back...but you won't go it alone.
He will tend His flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs in His arms and carry them in His bosom, and gently lead those who are with young. Isaiah 40
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