by Kurt Imbach

It was early on a Thursday morning, and I was calmly sitting there, minding my own business, mildly connecting with the Men’s Bible Study, when I was forcibly struck with a powerful thought. 

We were discussing Matthew 18:10-14 and though we did not spend much time discussing it, I couldn’t wriggle away from the intense concern of the shepherd for the one sheep that got lost.  There were 99 that were safe, appreciated and probably well cared for, but one strayed away and just had to be found.  So the shepherd left the 99 and searched until he found it.  He was ecstatic!  Luke 15 tells the same story adding a lost coin and a lost son, and even more detail about the wild, rejoicing celebration of recovery. 

Maybe we concentrate too much on keeping the 99 happy, tending to forget the lost ones.  And there are many.  Some enter our worship services every Sunday looking for a Church, a friend, or for help.  We call them visitors.  Some used to be a part of our fellowship but somehow got out of the habit, stopped coming and are now too embarrassed to return.  Some we know as friends or acquaintances, but are just as lost; so lost that they don’t even know it.  And some sit among us, minds drifting, hearts isolated and insulated, alone in the middle of a crowd, caught in entangling brambles or seriously hurt from a fall. There they sit, unable to reconnect on their own.  They just need someone to take an interest, spend a friendly moment, or make an invitation or point out a direction so that reconnection becomes a little more possible.  May we have hearts more like His with an insatiable passion for recovery of the lost, and may we know something of His glorious joy when He finds one of His through us.

                              -- Kurt Imbach