Christian Counseling Service -- Devotions

Foundling

Tuesday, December 10, 2002

Matthew 18:12-14
Jesus says,

12) "What do you think?
If a man owns a hundred sheep,
and one of them wanders away,
will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills
and go to look for the one that wandered off?
13) And if he finds it, I tell you the truth,
he is happier about that one sheep
than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off.
14) In the same way your Father in heaven
is not willing
that any of these little ones should be lost."

A song comes to my mind as I listen to Jesus' story..."I am loved, I am loved, I can risk loving you." Without the kind of unconditional, desperate, clinging love Jesus the shepherd gives me, I might not take that risk.

I imagine being lost in my own funk, my own self-made wilderness, feeling resentment, feeling betrayal, feeling hurt, feeling Angry. I have been offended, and I wander off away from the meadow, from the lush green grass of family to the bright, empty crags of my own mountain.

Will I come back when I get hungry? What if I get lost up there? Who will come to call me home? Does anybody care?

I can also imagine the rest of the family going off to the same funk-wilderness, to their own mountains, to their own empty place, this solitude a simple temporary solace for the pain of broken relationship.

It's so easy to get lost out there, where there are no guideposts, and no guide. Who will come to call us home?

Jesus was loved, he was loved ... and he risked loving me. Unlike the first Adam, he turned away from the opportunity to take, and chose to give.

Jesus does not settle in his warm tent as evening falls, hoping the lost sheep will turn up in the morning. He spends the night on the mountain, calling, crying, desperate. Frustrated as he might be by my immaturity and disobedience, his only focus is to find me, to hold me, to love me, to remind me that the green field, not the bleak mountain, is my home.

Oh, I sing to you, Lord a new song!
Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad;
Let the sea roar, and all its fullness;
Let the field be joyful, and all that is in it.
Then all the trees of the woods will rejoice before you.
For you are coming, for you are coming ...

(from Psalm 96)

Devotions Archive

Foundling

Tuesday, December 10, 2002