The Lost Ones

“There’s really only one thing worse than being lost. What’s worse is being lost when no one is trying to find you.” -David Platt

In the years I’ve worked in prisons and jails in various parts of the country, I know this statement rings true. You can see it in the eyes staring back at you. The longing to be seen. To be heard. For someone to be looking for them in their weakest time of wandering.

You can often hear it in the way they thank you for coming to teach or volunteer. One woman in a county jail commented to me, “I spent the first 18 years of my life in church but I had to come to jail to have someone show me how to live it.” She was a lost one…the daughter of a church deacon and not at all unfamiliar to the Bible stories that we can quote in our sleep. But in her lostness…she was WANTING to be found. Tears streaming down her face as she profusely thanked me for coming.

Isn’t this how we all are? Sometimes we don’t even know what it is we want! We just feel the ache inside us. The hollow feeling. The emptiness. And we long in the deepest part of our being that someone would come and rescue us. That someone would come finding us when we are lost. We want to be found.

This is why we look for healing in all the wrong places. We search for purpose and someone to tell us the things we crave to hear. We run far away and we try to analyze our scars and our pain and we hope in the realest way we know that there is meaning in all of it.

I’ve been able to go to lunch (commonly called “chow” in prison) with female inmates on several occasions. I’ve eaten their food and sat at their tables and experienced a little, tiny piece of their world. Every single time multiple ladies have come up and said something like “It’s been nice eating with someone from the outside. Almost makes me feel human again.” Me eating with them wasn’t earth shattering. But it spoke to their need…to be heard and known and loved anyway. To CHOOSE to get into their world when I didn’t have to.

When you’re lost, you want someone to be looking for you. You want someone to love you enough to search diligently UNTIL YOU ARE FOUND. Not give up when it gets hard. But keep looking. Keep pursing.

The greatest Pursuer is Jesus Himself. Ever looking for us. Always wooing us. Forever orchestrating a complex and beautiful tapestry of people in our lives who will whisper His name in our darkest moments. Maybe it’s not even blatantly obvious at the time…but in looking back we can see His masterful handiwork. His fingerprints. His relentless pursuing of us. Loving us when we were lost and wandering and unloveable.

“For I am persuaded that not even death or life, angels or rulers, things present or things to come, hostile powers, height or depth, or any other created thing will have the power to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord!” Romans‬ ‭8‬:‭38‬-‭39‬ ‭HCSB‬‬

Jesus is about the lost ones. And He never gives up. Never. I want to reflect His heart of love for the wandering. What about you?