Reflections for Youth - Lost and Found

I lost my passport in my house somewhere. Two years ago. I put it somewhere for safekeeping - and then promptly forgot where that was.  Every now and again I would look for it again - get frustrated - and then give up.  Last week my husband found it. When he told me where it was I instantly remembered putting it there. Alas, there was much rejoicing! 

Read Luke 15: 1-10


The Bible tells us about how God doesn’t give up on things and people that are lost.  In the scriptures, we learn that Jesus always looked for and welcomed people who were lost and were far away from God— Or people that had lots of questions about God and maybe didn’t believe that God loved them.

Jesus said that when the person was found and came back to God there was great cheering and rejoicing.

Jesus' parables about things that were lost remind us of this.  The first story is about sheep. A shepherd had 100 sheep and one of them was lost.  The other was about a woman who was missing a coin.  In both of these stories, Jesus said there was a celebration when the lost items were found.

God is like this shepherd and this woman,  Jesus said.  God will never stop looking for someone who was lost.


Unlike me looking for my passport, there is not giving up in either story.  The coin and the sheep are not with the people they belong to.  The woman and the shepherd keep trying to fix that; they keep looking for the coin and sheep so that they would once again be with whom they belong to. When they are there is great rejoicing.





This same thing sometimes happens to us with God. We sometimes we stop paying attention to God because we are paying attention to something else. Then we forget that we belong to God; that is how we get separated from God and “lost.”


I've been thinking this week that God continues to tell us that we belong to God is through each other. That’s one of the reasons we gather in worship every week - to remind each other that we are not lost – that we belong to God and to each other.
Questions to think about:

• Have you ever lost - and then found something that is important to you? 
• How did you feel when you found it?
• Have you ever felt lost? What are somethings that you can do to feel "found" again?
• When you notice that someone else is lost - or feeling lost, what can you do to help them find their way?