Do lost iPods matter to God?

July 21, 2010 at 4:16 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: lost, Luke 15, restoration

Yesterday I pulled into the gym parking lot ready to hammer the Stairmaster, I reached into my pocket to get my iPod Shuffle and it was gone. For the next five minutes everything in my life came to a stop as checked my pockets over and over, checked the floor of my car as best I could in a parking lot on a rainy day. I really love my iPod Shuffle and when I realized it was lost, I didn’t want to work out; I wanted to head home and continue the search. How could something I put in my pocket less than fifteen minutes ago disappear? Where was it? I drove home, got a flashlight and looked in every nook and cranny in my car. Nothing. I retraced my steps at home, no sign of the iPod. Was I crazy? Granted an iPod Shuffle is pretty small, slightly larger than a stick of Trident gum; but even then how could it just vanish?

When I lose something that matters to me, I’m reminded that God knows exactly where it is. Why not ask Him? So while I continued my search, I talked to God and asked him to reveal the location of the iPod. Within minutes I felt impressed to look at the chair I sat in prior to leaving the house; the chair I sat in to put on my gym shoes. I looked at the chair and saw nothing. Then it occurred to me to put my hands between the cushion and the sides of the chair; and it was there I found my iPod Shuffle. Thank you God! Without that bit of revelation, my iPod would have been lost for many more days.

Luke 15 is devoted to lost things. Jesus uses three parables to show that lost people matter to God: the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son. In the first two parables, everything else stops when something precious is lost. When something valuable is lost, everything changes. Priorities change. Schedules change. When something valuable is lost, all of life stops and there is an all out effort to recover what was lost. In the parable of the lost son, the dynamics are a bit different. The father respects the son’s free agency and allows the son to choose. In that respect, the lost condition of the son is even more tragic because the one who is lost is choosing estrangement and peril. At his home, life has changed. The father will never be at rest, he will never be whole until his son returns.

I can tell you story after story of God leading me to discover the location of lost things. Lost people matter to God, they are His number one priority. I also take comfort in the fact that what matters to me, matters to God. In the grand scheme of things, with wars, crime, the BP oil spill, marriages on the rocks, and disease, one would think that a lost iPod wouldn’t merit the attention of God. Why would He care? He would have every right to tell me to grow up and stop asking Him to help me in something so trivial compared to the other needs of my community and the world. Yet somehow, God hears every prayer and gives it His full attention.

What is lost in your life? Is it hope? A sense of worth that you matter? Is it purpose? Have you lost the future you dreamed about? Have you lost a family to belong to? Have you lost a son or daughter that has gone their own way and they have made decisions that have hurt them and those who love them? Have you lost keys, a wallet, or even an iPod? I want you to know that God hears you when you cry out to him. Your prayers matter to Him. God is in the business of restoring what was lost.