When I was about eight years old I was really into the TV show Kung Fu with David Caradine.
I had a nice collection of Kung Fu trading cards. This was back in the days before video games, before the internet, simpler times maybe?
Anyway, I brought the cards to school one day and left them in my "cubbie" during recess. When I came back, they were gone. Stolen. I was heart broken. Something that meant a lot to me was taken from me.
43 years later I still remember that, why?
I think that when we suffer a loss, it runs deep inside us. The fact that they were simple collector cards isn't the point. In fact, the apparent simplicity of the object actually magnifies my point. It's not what I lost as much as how much I felt the loss.
Loss impacts us, it leaves an imprint on us. I vividly remember the cards, and how I felt even all these years later. We have all suffered loss of some kind. Loss of relationships, loss of dreams, loss of hope.
But the good news is Jesus said, "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost." Luke 19:10 (NIV)
Far more than those cards, Jesus sees us as something lost, and he seeks to find us.
Oh, I actually found a collection of those cards on eBay and bought them. Perhaps I simply wanted something back that I had lost.
Just like the Lord.
