The church is the great lost and found department.
ROBERT SHORT
Early in their marriage, my friends Val and Jim got a female Beagle puppy they named Beazley. Their eldest son was a toddler then, and he and the pup were little together. Beazley weighed only about six pounds…small enough to get lost when her people weren’t watching. And one day, she did.
Val had heard some noise outside and went to investigate. A small neighborhood parade was passing by. She stood watching from her front porch. She never noticed the puppy slip past her and wander away.
Not until later did the family realize their dog was gone. Val’s little boy was devastated. Val was too. She feared Beazley might be lost to them forever. The tiny pup had not been wearing any kind of identification. She and Jim worked for an urban ministry and some female ministry staff shared a house half a mile away. But, apart from them, she didn’t really know her neighbors.
Val called the staff women and asked for prayer. She prayed all afternoon—while her little boy wept. At about 4 p.m., the phone rang. Unbelievably, one of the staff women had seen Beazley near her own home. She had caught the pup and brought her inside. Val went to fetch her and Beazley was home before dinner.
Then and now, Val believes finding Beazley was a miracle. There was a huge park between their home and the staff’s house. Streets changed direction. What were the odds of this tiny puppy winding up in the only place where she would be recognized? But God is bigger than any odds or any problem and He reunited this wonderful dog with her people. Beazley grew to be 25 pounds, lived to a ripe old doggie age, and blessed her family all of her life.
Like Val, I lost something of value that God miraculously restored. One day last year I was taking a walk, glanced down, and saw that the ring I’d been wearing was missing its small emerald.
I had no idea where I’d lost it. I had been many places that day, and had washed my hands with the ring on. But I knew that God could restore that stone. I’d seen Him do this with a friend’s diamond in response to prayer. I’d been speaking with a Bible study pal on my cell phone as I walked, and now we asked God to bring back my emerald if it was His will.
I was in the midst of a home remodel at the time. My contractor checked the traps beneath some sinks for me. No emerald. Two weeks passed, and I figured the jewel was lost forever.
One day I was out shopping for new kitchen appliances for the remodel. My cell phone rang. It was my contractor—calling with amazing news. A worker helping to install a glass door on a shower in one of my bathrooms had found my emerald on the tub’s drain. I was in shock. I’d used that tub since the emerald had gone missing. By all accounts, that stone should have been long gone. But there it was! God had not only restored my treasure but multiplied my faith—and my contractor’s faith as well!
Jesus’s disciples thought they had lost a treasure too—one more precious by far than a dog or a jewel. They thought they’d lost their beloved Lord Jesus to death. They didn’t fully understand what He had taught them. They didn’t quite believe He would be raised from the dead. Even when His body went missing from the tomb, some thought it had simply been moved.
Mary Magdalene was one of those. When a pair of angels appeared to her and asked why she was crying, she told them, “They have taken my Lord away, and I don’t know where they have put him” (John 20:13). But she and Jesus’s other disciples soon learned that God had miraculously restored His Son, their Messiah—and through Him, would do the same for all who trusted Him for their salvation.
Precious as Beasley was to her people, glad as I was to get my jewel back, the greater treasure was seeing God at work. I am so grateful my God is a God of restoration. And I am grateful that through Christ’s death, all those who would be lost to sin and death are “found” to spend eternity with Him.
For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10).
Have you ever lost a treasure (pet, object, person) that God restored? How did He do it? How has it affected your faith? How can you pray for restoration in your own and others’ lives?