Missing

A couple weeks back we received a call from Dianna's family telling us that our niece was missing.

That is horrible news. Someone you love is missing. They are not where they are supposed to be, and you do not know where they are or what is happening. They are missing.

As it turned out, about a week later, we were told that this niece had been found. She had, in fact, run off with a young man of questionable character and her father assured us she was safe and he was on it.

But for a week or so, she was just missing.

I remember on some of those days feeling absolutely devastated by that word: missing.

How desperate would you be if someone you loved were missing? What would you do if someone you loved were lost? Would there be any end to the effort you would make if your loved one were possibly in danger and at risk of never being found?

In the days after the initial call telling us she had "vanished", I remember the overwhelming sense of helplessness. Something had to be done. Somehow word needed to get out. I needed to figure out a way to help bring home the one who "disappeared".

So I did the only thing that I could think to help. I took a picture of our niece and added words telling that she was missing, and I posted that to facebook. My thought was, if friends and friends of friends, and friends of friends of friends, could be challenged to post her picture, then just maybe someone would see it, and that someone might know something and that information might just change her "missing" condition to found.

It worked.

Before a week had passed that picture had been posted by 3000 people (and that doesn't count those who posted off of other posts). And at week's-end we got word that an adult in the "young man's" family, saw it...realized what had happened and spilled the beans.  A police officer who saw the post, and knew the story of our niece intervened.

Missing. Found.

As I thought about my feelings of desperation that week, it hit me that this is what God feels. He loves the lost. He loves them so much that he "posted" a message in the person of His Son-so everyone would know something precious was lost and needed to be found.

I wonder, how desperate are you to find the missing/lost/spiritually far from God? Does their condition bother you at all? I found myself in a spiritual conflict within my heart throughout that week.

Rightfully so, I felt convinced that I needed to do SOMETHING/ANYTHING when someone I loved was missing.

Should I not feel the same desperation for the lost around me?

Will I ever feel moved to desperation to see the lost found?

Today would you pray with me, that God would stir up in our hearts an attitude of desperation for the lost around us? They are in your neighborhood. They are in your office. They work beside you. They live in your home.

Missing! Who will find them? What will you do?

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

God demonstrates his love for the lost.

Are you demonstrating? Are you desperate? What would you do? What will you do?