Lost & Found

Psalm 36, 5-8, from The Message:

God’s Love is METEORIC,
His Loyalty is ASTRONOMIC,
His Purposes are TITANIC,
His Verdicts are OCEANIC;
Yet, in His Large-ness NOTHING GETS LOST;
Not a man, not even a mouse, Nothing slips through the cracks.

Ever misplace stuff?

Ever loose a brand new roll of stamps, one sock from a favorite pair, a key chain full of jingly keys, a vitally-important document, or your cell phone (ever lost your phone more than once in the same week?) Me too, last week as a matter of fact.

Ever do something really dumb like put the milk in the pantry and then wonder if its your mind you may have lost?

Ever say to yourself, I better put that in a safe place? That's a troublesome one for me. Whenever I assign an extra-special place for something, then, I pretty much know I'll never see it again ... unless of course I come across it while searching for some other lost thing.

I grew up in an Irish Catholic home where different Saints were assigned to specific jobs. St. Anthony was frequently summonsed to our house. He was the "finder of things" and we had that poor patron saint working overtime, 24/7. There was even a little song that you sang as you rooted through drawers and turned the house upside down in a frenzy. It was meant to calm you down and help you to remember that God is in control of all things, it went like this:
Dear St. Anthony,
Please come around,
There's something that's lost and cannot be found!
You know where it is, won't you show it to me now?

It usually began as a happy little sing-songy ditty, that eventually escalated into an angry dirge as you began to imagine all of heaven staring at the lost object but not showing it to you!

What if YOU were in charge of everything in the universe?
What if YOU had to keep it all properly filed and under control?
What if YOUR task list included "seeking and saving lost people?"
How would YOU do with that one, day in day out? Yiikes.

Now that I've been found, I find that I don't always have a lot of patience and perseverance for "the lost." I tend to forget that I was once a wretch too, till Jesus found me. God you are so good, so infinitely long-suffering, H-E-L-P us Lord, only YOU are perfect.
Re-mind us that we are ALL lost without You, Jesus.
Even in Your Large-ness, Nothing gets lost.