LOST!!!

If there is one thing in life that I cannot stand, it is when I lose something.  This has gone far back to when I was a child, and up until this very day.

Point in case:  Yesterday I taught several students.  I am organizing next years piano schedule, as well as trying to nail down all the songs that my students will be playing, and have TRIED to keep it all organized in a file folder near the piano.  Also in this file folder were several invoice payments for this months lessons - both cash and cheques!!!

So at the end of my lessons yesterday, I went to reach for my folder, and (* heart drops to the pit of my stomach*) I couldn't find it anywhere.  My daughter helped me look, but to no avail.  I then assumed that I must have gotten it mixed up with some students books as I scooped them up and returned them to their book bags.  So, I proceeded to call all my student's parent's to check if it had indeed shown up in their books.  One by one, each parent told me - no, it wasn't there.  So then my husband, daughter and myself turned the studio, my office, and every place imaginable, upside down in the hopes of finding it.

You see, the reason this sort of thing bothers me is because I know it is SOMEWHERE!!!  It's not a little thing.  It's larger than a sheet of paper, and certainly fatter (there WERE cheques and cash in there!!!) This little issue of mine goes way back to when I was a young girl of maybe 9 or 10.  I had been trick or treating with my siblings, and had one favorite item in my snack bag.  A package of Mackintosh toffee!  OH YES!  That was pure gold.  I could share everything else, but that package of toffee. . . well it was mine.  And I was going to save it for such a time that I needed a pick me up.  So, I went and stuffed it way in the back of my closet where all my dolls and doll crib etc. were stored.  I didn't think about it for a long time.  Several months later, as I was cleaning my room, I remembered it.  WHAT JOY!!!  I hauled out the doll crib where I KNEW I had stashed it. . . . but it wasn't there.  Out came the next bag of doll clothes.  Not there.  Then came the box of small toys that were my keepsakes.  Not in there.  I KNEW it had to be there somewhere.  But NOTHING!  I asked my siblings, but they didn't know anything about it.  I asked my Mom.  No one knew where it was.  For months, I would search high and low looking for that prized package of gold.  I never did find it, and it has always made me wonder:  Did I eat it?  Did my brother or sister find it and not tell the truth?  It HAD to be somewhere.

Well, that was my feeling last night.  That folder didn't just up and walk away.  Having said that, I have also been known to absentmindedly put things in the most peculiar places.  FYI, whipped cream does not last very long in an non-refrigerated cupboard.  Nor does fresh spinach fare very well, when placed into the freezing compartment of the fridge rather than the crisper.  So when our search wound down, Keith made a comment that it was highly possible I had put it somewhere strange and it would eventually show up.  To which I responded, "well make sure you check the freezer the next time you go downstairs".  AND VOILA!!!!  The light bulb went on!!!  I recalled going downstairs to check on our aquarium pump!!!  And in one swift exit downstairs, I recovered the folder that had once been lost and now was found!!!

As relief washed over me, (and I quickly got my deposit ready!!!), I got to thinking about how frustrating it is when I cannot find something, but how amazingly filled with relief I am when I find it.  The whole episode got me to thinking about the parable in the Bible that I had taught to my Preschool kids not that long ago about the woman and the lost coin, and the analogy Jesus made about when someone turns their lives around and follows Jesus.  I certainly knew the relief and joy I felt last night, and I can only imagine what Jesus must feel when someone leave their lives behind to follow Him.

But I also got to thinking about how I would have felt if I had found my folder, only to find that all the cheques were missing!!!  Can you imagine how deflating that would be?  How disappointing and sick I would have felt?  I wonder if that is the way God feels when we say we love Him, but choose to follow our own path.  If you've read my blog from the other day about being hot or cold, (you can read it HERE), you will understand where these thoughts are coming from.  I think about how may years ago, I committed my life to following God.  I recommitted it to Him when I was a teenager, and have for the most part followed "the right" path.  However, over the last few weeks, I have begun to wonder how truthful that commitment was.  As I've taken a good hard look at my life, and watched as I've made selfish decisions, as I've made choices that please me rather than God, as I've gone ahead with my life without as much as a thought to how it pleases God, I've started to wonder if my life isn't a bit like that file folder.  I know God knows what my future brings I understand that.  He knows what my decisions have been and will be.

But yesterday I got to thinking about how my life, and yes - at times - my lack of commitment to Him, must be like thinking I had found the folder I'd lost, only to discover that contents weren't in it.  I've wondered if that is how God sees me? (Please forgive me for humanizing God!)  But I have to wonder, if I had opened that folder yesterday to find the contents empty, how sick and disappointed I would have been.  I wonder if that is how God sees me.  I had made a promise to Him years ago.  To follow Him.  To seek Him.  To serve Him.  But here I am today - folder pretty much empty.  Doing my own thing.  SAYING I am a follower of Him, yet 99% of the time, serving myself.

I wonder how that makes God feel.  I wonder. . .

I think it's time I start getting rid of the self, and filling "my folder" with the things in my life that I promised God along time ago.  Service to Him.  A heart of submission to His will.  A life given over FULLY to Him.

I trust as you listen to the lyrics of this old hymn, you will be motivated with me to move into a closer. . . a deeper. . . A REAL relationship with God.  One that puts our own desires behind us.  One that focuses on serving the very One who saved us.  One that loses our own life to gain the life that was saved for us by Jesus Christ.  Let's lay down our own selfishness and focus our eyes on the one that FOUND us!!