Daily Delight
I love going to the store. One of my favourite stores to walk around in is Walmart, especially late at night. It’s big and exciting and sometimes there are discounted treats (always a win for me). However, not all of my trips to the store have been thrilling as trips to Walmart. When I was a kid, my mom and I went to a clothing store to pick up some new school shirts and we got separated from each other. All I remember is crying in the middle of the store and frantically searching for someone who worked there that could help me find my mom. I haven’t ever liked this specific store since.
Are you familiar with the feeling of being lost? That sense of panic to find who you belong to and where home is? I’ve experienced it, aside from being lost in a clothes store. For a long time, I never quite felt like I had a place. I felt that my edges were too jagged to fit in. These feelings soon began to transfer into my relationship with God. I started to believe that I didn’t have a place with Him either.
What I’m learning in my journey is that Jesus is more committed to the process than I am. Matthew 18:12-13 shows us this when Jesus tells the story of the lost sheep. A lamb wanders away and gets lost. Any amount of logic would suggest that going to search for it would be foolish- it’s only one lamb! What if the rest went missing when the farmer is searching? But the farmer, he sees the value in the one lost lamb. He goes and thoroughly searches for it. I can picture the scene, it’s the dead of night and the lamb is lost, afraid and helpless in some terrifying forest. And then it hears the farmer's voice… and that farmer comes and lifts it, carries it home, holding it close the whole way. This is what Jesus does for us. In those moments when we’re lost and afraid, He calls out to us. He reminds us that He is here and He won’t lose us, even if we feel the most lost we’re ever felt.
Steph McGown