Lost Bags

I am officially two for two on lost bags while traveling. Have you ever had your bags lost? It’s probably the single most frustrating situation to live through. It makes it worse when they said your bag was delivered – but it wasn’t – and no one will answer the phone. As I sat in my hotel room, steaming and frustrated this morning, I began to ask God – what is the message in all of this? It may seem ridiculous, but I’m in the habit these days of trying to turn frustrations into a space for learning, growing, and seeing God’s hand move through them…after all, “we know that for those who love God all things work together for good…” (Romans 8:28) I have come to take that literally…

And boy did God begin to develop the lesson in my heart.

Let me back up. The first time I lost my bag, I was on vacation with my husband. Frankly, I wasn’t too terribly torn up about it because all I saw was a warranted shopping trip. (I got some adorable outfits out of that deal, by the way.) This time, however, I am traveling for work. I had enough foresight to pack one suit in my carry on…but literally everything else I need is in that bag. I don’t know if you’ve shopped for professional clothes recently, but they aren’t cheap. Replacing these items isn’t some $200 stop into a boutique – and I have 8 days of clothes for multiple events of varying formality in that suitcase.  So this time is particularly stressful. I started tracking bags and monitoring email about an hour after I filed the report. Obsessively. I woke up at 7am and the first thing I did was check my email. Bag delivered! Front desk: sike. They don’t have it. Since then, I’ve called every number I can find and garnered every resource available to me to try and track down exactly WHERE my bag was delivered…to no avail. I’ve reached answering machines, busy signals, “please hold” that never came back to the phone, no phone numbers, automatic email responses…shut down after shut down.

And God said to me: This is how I feel. I pursue you relentlessly. You don’t answer. Your life is so busy I can’t get through. You put me on hold and forget to come back. You read what I’ve written and choose not to respond. You seek all of your worldly resources, but you forget to seek after me.

In Matthew 18:10-14, Jesus tells a parable about sheep.

What do you think? If a man has 100 sheep and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the 99 on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? (v. 12)

Sometimes we overlook these parables in scripture because they don’t make sense to us…but if we dig in, they’re incredibly encouraging and often contain necessary wisdom in our walk with Christ. Shepherds in that day would take their sheep to graze. They were responsible for keeping the sheep safe and returning the entire flock. Jesus is comparing his children (us!) to the sheep. If one of us was to wander off, the Shepherd (God) would leave the rest of the sheep to go find the lost one. And when he does,

...he rejoices over it more than over the 99 that never went astray. (v. 13)

God does not desire to lose any one of his precious children. He will pursue us relentlessly, trying to break through the busyness of our lives and the hardness of our hearts. As we focus on pursuing the things of this world, he is focused on trying to get us to see our eternal fate.

It took half a day before I could get someone on a chat that at least attempted to help me locate my bag. It was fruitless, but a seed of encouragement was planted when I was able to at least talk to a real person for a few minutes. So which person are you?

Have you accepted Christ into your life, or are you ignoring the relentless pursuit of your Savior? Know that he loves you, and he wants to be close to you. You are precious to him.

If you’re already saved, are you helping the lost locate their Savior? Your instructions didn’t end with “follow me.” Once you accepted the invitation, Jesus also told us to go into the world and make disciples. You may not walk someone down the isle to be saved, but your encouragement could be the seed that helps them find what was lost.

Whatever camp you fall into, know that you are loved by the God of miracles, the Savior of the world. He has proclaimed victory that you are invited to walk in daily. Hold up your head – the world can be a distracting place, but you are a child of God.