Lost

It’s story time.

For our honeymoon, we took a cruise down to Mexico and chose snorkeling as one of our excursions. Now, you need to understand that I don’t love to swim, and I’m not a strong swimmer. I also panic a bit when I’m in the ocean. It’s just so BIG. I feel tiny and helpless by comparison.

 Still, I was excited. This was the kind of snorkeling trip where they take you out on a boat to a reef, and you snorkel from there. None of that beach-area snorkeling for us! I geared up and jumped in the water. My husband Andrew and I started together, but I was soon distracted by a cute little orange fish. He was so little, and I was having fun watching him swim along, darting here and there, doing his little fishy errands.

After a bit, I looked up to tell Andrew about my new fish friend, but I couldn’t immediately see him. In fact, where was our boat? Panic started to set in when I finally saw our boat, looking much smaller now for all the distance between us. I was way too far out.

Then I realized that while I was focusing on following the little fishy, a swarm of tiny jellyfish had circled me. I am terrified of jellyfish, but there I was, surrounded by hundreds of them. Panic really set in then! I was a LONG way from my boat, I couldn’t see Andrew, and I was facing, what I thought, was certain death (or at least severe pain) in the form of a thousand jellyfish stings.

I started yelling for Andrew, and thankfully, he heard me and came to my rescue. Let me tell you I knew I married a good one when he swam through the jellyfish army to save me, had me hold on to his back, and swam us both back out of the jelly-apocalypse.

Apparently, these jellies were not stinging jellies, so all ended well, but man, was I scared!

When I think of being “lost,” this is the moment I relive, but being lost can take on a lot of different forms.

You can know exactly where you are on a map and still feel lost.

Have you ever felt lost, even though you knew where your feet were? Maybe you’ve felt lost in the crowd, unseen or unacknowledged - like you just didn’t matter to anyone.

Maybe you feel lost in your to-do list or endless job and family responsibilities. Or, you could feel lost in your relationship with your significant other. That relationship that always felt like home doesn’t feel the same, and you just don’t know how to get back to the way it used to be.

It could be that you are lost in what to do next. Where do you go from here? Should you look for a new job? What should you major in? What comes next?

Maybe you are just lost in the noise of the world. Social media and getting likes and followers have tanked your self-esteem and taken your focus away from more meaningful relationships.

Listen. We’ve all been there. We’ve all felt lost, and we have all been lost at some point.

Usually, when we are lost in these ways, it’s of our own doing. Like my lost in the sea story, we focus on the little fish in our lives to the extent that we don’t see the big ocean. Too metaphorical?

Let me be more direct.

We focus on whatever it is we care about in the moment, which may absolutely be a good or important thing, but we focus on it to the extent that we don’t look for God. We “swim” after the thing and don’t consider where we are in relation to God.

The good news is we don’t have to stay lost. God is in the business of finding people. He cares about all the things we are chasing after, but he wants us to chase after Him first, to “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33), and He’ll take care of the other things we need.

I love the story of the prodigal son. You can read the whole story in Luke 15. It comes right after the parable of the lost sheep, where the shepherd leaves 99 of his sheep to go look for one who is lost and brings it back to the fold. After that is the parable of the lost coin, where a woman searches everywhere for a coin and rejoices when it is found. (Do you sense a theme here? I LOVE that we have a God who comes searching for us when we are lost!)

The main part of the prodigal son is when the younger son asks for all his inheritance early and goes and spends it partying carpe diem style. Shockingly (says no one), this doesn’t end well, and he finds himself working with pigs and wishing he could just eat their slop. Then it dawns on him that he can go home. When he does, his father goes out to greet him and welcomes him back with rejoicing and a big celebration. He was lost, and now he’s found. It’s a beautiful picture. The prodigal son got “lost” in following his own desires. He didn’t care what the father wanted. Even so, the father welcomes him back. That’s beautiful and so, so comforting.

It’s the second son that hits a little closer to home for me, though. When the younger brother comes home, the older one, the one who has done everything right, who has stayed and fulfilled his responsibilities, gets pretty mad that dad kills the fattened calf for the younger brother. The older brother says to his father:

“Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!” (Luke 15: 29-30).

It’s a pretty significant tantrum. If you have more than one child, I’m sure you recognize the “It’s not fair!” argument he’s using here. What it also reveals is how lost the older brother is, too.

He’s still at home, but he’s lost in his focus and thinking. He’s focusing just on himself and doing the outward things he is supposed to do, but his heart is far from his father. The Bible says this lots of times, but one example is found in 1 Samuel 17:3: “The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

The big brother was just as lost in his heart as his little brother. But, guess what? His father comes after him, too. He leaves the party when he realizes the older son isn’t there.

Take comfort in knowing no matter how lost you are, God is already looking for you - he’s probably already right in front of you. You just have to take your eyes off your circumstances and look up.

I think you’ll discover he’s been right there waiting, ready to help you find your way.