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Luke 15:8-10 (The Message)

"Or imagine a woman who has ten coins and loses one. 

Won't she light a lamp and scour the house, looking in every nook and cranny until she finds it?

And when she finds it you can be sure she'll call her friends and neighbors: 'Celebrate with me! I found my lost coin!' 

Count on it—that's the kind of party God's angels throw every time one lost soul turns to God."

I can remember only a couple of instances in my children's lives when I really couldn't find them, and then only for a couple of moments.  

I guess every parent has that experience at least once.  You turn a corner in a grocery store, sure that they're right beside you.  You look back seconds later, and can't see them anywhere.  

The feeling that comes next is hard to describe.  Seconds seem like hours.  Minutes like days...or years.  

I cannot imagine the experience of parents who have lost children.  The loss, panic, pain...must be too much for words to describe.  

Parents know about the unspeakable kinds of evil that lurk in the dark places of our world.  For the short space of time when our children remain truly innocent, we seek to protect them from all the things that could bring them harm.  

I am sure that the impulse to protect them never really goes away.  

Imagine this feeling in the heart of God.  Jesus is telling us that God will seek and search for his lost children.  

9 out of 10 isn't good enough.  There is a special passion in the heart of God for those who are "lost."  

Luke 15 makes this clear, through a collection of stories about the "lost," the "found," and most of all...the "search."  

The simple truth of this scripture...

God...seeks...us. 

Prayer:  Thank you for never giving up on us, for searching until we are found, for a passion that will not be quenched.  Help us to stay in your loving care.  

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.  As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be.  World without end.  Amen.