God calls us to help the lost
I don’t remember how long I was lost for, or how much searching I did, but I do remember that awful feeling.
By Chris Roberts

A long time ago, when I was just a little boy, my family and I visited a children’s museum.

It’s been a long time, but as far as I can remember, it was the museum’s grand opening because there were a lot of people there and a lot of different places to visit within and around the facility.

I remember being fascinated with all there was to see and play with, though I can’t remember any of the attractions. I remember the impressions of that trip so well because something bad happened that day.

I got lost.

Everybody has a story like it from their childhood. Mom and Dad are walking next to you one second and the next they’re gone. You look frantically left, right and everywhere in between, but you can’t find them anywhere. Panic starts to overwhelm you as you start to run around in circles, dodging between people’s legs and looking up into strange faces. The smiles on the people’s faces look less and less inviting and more and more dangerous, and everywhere you turn is the wrong way.

I don’t remember how long I was lost for, or how much searching I did, but I do remember that awful feeling. Eventually, like most kids, I ended up giving up hope and sitting down on a street curb and bawling. The weight of never seeing my parents again was more than I could bear. It was hopeless, it seemed. No matter where I looked, I couldn’t find them. I didn’t know what path they had taken, or where they were going, and now that I had twisted and turned in so many different directions, I didn’t even know where I was.

And then, when hope seemed completely gone, my father’s face was there beside me, and I was safe again, being lifted up into his arms and crushed against his chest as he half chided, half smiled at me for giving him a fright.

I can’t think of a better illustration for the idea of reaching the lost.

We’re all kids playing around in God’s museum. Some of us know exactly where our Father is, and exactly the path He wants us to take to stay with Him. Some of us are even holding His hand while we walk. Some of us, though, are wandering around lost, without hope, despair filling our hearts until we feel like doing nothing more than sitting on a curb and crying.

It’s those people that God calls us to help. It could be your brother, your best friend or your stern boss. Even if they are the meanest person in the world and it seems as if nothing can get through their tough exterior, when it comes right down to it we’re all just like children seeking out the hope that only the comfort of the Father can give.

A preacher friend of mine once told me a story about his prayer journal. He said he’d been keeping his prayer journal for more than 40 years, and ever since he first started writing names in the journal, there had been one name at the top: his best friend. He said he’d been praying for his best friend’s salvation every day for 40 years, never giving up hope that he would find him and bring his lost friend to the safe arms of his Father. For 40 years he “searched” for his friend and tried to help him to find his way, and after 40 years his best friend did just that by making Jesus his lord and savior and being baptized.

There are hundreds of stories out there like that, but for every 100 success stories there are probably five times as many who remain lost to the very end.

I know, and I’m sure most of you do too, just how desolate, desperate and alone the feeling of being lost is. Let’s make sure we help people find their Father, because right now there are too many of them sitting on the curb crying.