Found and Waiting

I was searching through our church’s “Lost and Found” yesterday.  It was a part of my sermon research on the stories about the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin (Luke 15:1-10).  I was struck by the contents: lots of clothing articles; a child’s backpack, some jewelry articles and, of most interest to me, several pairs of reading glasses.  I had a picture in my mind of people somehow connected to our church who either decided reading wasn’t all that important to them, or they adapted by extending their arms full length to hold their reading material.  

Why have these articles been sitting in a cardboard box marked “Lost and Found” for so long a time?  Are none of these items of enough value to the owners to justify returning to church to retrieve them? Or, perhaps the owners simply could not recall where they “lost” these items.  But, if they were of real value to the owners, they would have retraced their steps, right?  Am I the only who obsesses over things of mine that my wife or co-workers have misplaced, leaving them in a state of being lost to me?

Anyway, I was thinking about what we could do to fix this problem. One, I suppose, is to move the box out of the coat closet.  A better solution, I think, would be to rename the box. Instead of “Lost and Found”, I am thinking we could go with “Found and Waiting.”  You see, the term “Lost and Found” is not accurate, at least not from the viewpoint of the original owner.  The owner lost her reading glasses. The cleaning service “found” them and turned them in to the office. So, at this point, the glasses are no longer lost, but they are awaiting their return to the rightful owner.  They have been found, but they await reconnecting with the owner who “lost” them. (This word also bothers me. The glasses were really just misplaced. They were not “lost”, as in “unfindable.” They were not “lost”; they were just “not yet found.”)

So, if we changed the label to “Found and Waiting” perhaps the found items would be of greater interest. People would wonder whether there was some valuable or interesting item of their own just waiting to be reclaimed.  The fact is that, if we don’t do something soon we will need to discard the items in the box, and then they really will be lost in some trash dump on their way to incineration. We need to motivate people to start searching. “We found your glasses. You can read again if only you will claim them!” Alas, it seems that the owners have decided the glasses are not worth the effort to retrieve, or they have given up hope of finding them.

Glasses are not people. People have an Owner who deeply desires that everyone be “found”, and this Owner never gives up hope. Which brings me back to where I started. Do you think you are lost? Do you know you are found? Are you waiting for your Owner to come back for you? Perhaps some servant is being sent to let you know you have been claimed, to free you from the box today!  Do you want to be retrieved, or do you prefer life in the box?