“HAVE YOU SEEN MY DAUGHTER?”

“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?”

Matthew 18:12

I was in a London bookstore on Oxford Street, one of the busiest streets in the world, when I lost my three-year-old. I’d looked away from Catherine for just a moment, and when I turned back around, she was gone. Vanished! I looked out at the teeming sidewalk of people, first confused, then frantic. I ran outside in search of her. I climbed on top of a mailbox, screaming, “Catherine! Catherine!” I stopped strangers: “Have you seen my daughter?”

Then I saw her. She had just walked around the corner to the children’s book section and was sitting behind a bookshelf, mostly hidden. While I had been frantic, she had been reading.

I will never forget that feeling of panic. Maybe you’ve experienced that horrifying feeling. You feel physically ill. Your heart beats violently. You feel hopeless and helpless and crazy to find your child.

Likewise, every single second of every single day God’s heart beats passionately for every lost person. So many need rescuers; so many need others to help; so many are simply sitting still. Yet each of them is God’s precious lamb, missing treasure, beloved child. He seeks them—as He seeks you—as a loving parent would.

Thank You, God, that You always come for us when we wander.