One time I got lost in church.
I was five years old and shipped off to children's church to have fun and learn about Jesus and do some crafts. Instead, I got horribly, horribly confused when we broke up into our smaller age groups. I guess I just followed a crowd of nice-looking kids, because I ended up in a classroom that wasn't my classroom, with a teacher who wasn't my teacher, doing some paper-weaving craft to make a "basket" for Moses. My basket for the boy who would grow up to take part in the splitting of the Red Sea was, of course, pink and purple.
And then the parents started coming and my parents didn't come, which for a little one is about the equivalent of the solar apocalypse.
Of course a Sunday school building is, in reality, much smaller than it appears to five-year-old eyes, and my mommy and daddy found me eventually (after I had cried my eyes out). I was whisked off in our van, safe and sound, with the promise of green mint ice cream to make up for the trauma of this misadventure.
Sixteen years later, I don't remember ANY other days in that Sunday school building. But I have very vivid flashes of the day I got lost.
It doesn't feel good, being lost. You know someone has to be looking for you -- they have to be -- well, don't they? -- but you have no idea if or when they'll find you. A once-safe place suddenly looms large and feels rather threatening when you're lost inside of it. The kind, well-meaning people who stay with you until you are found are clearly heaven-sent angels, but even they can only do so much against the huge, shapeless terror that is the word lost.
One time Jesus got lost in church.
Annual family vacation up to Jerusalem, and they left without Jesus. It took them a whole day for them to notice He was missing (how many times does it take us much longer than that?), and three more days to actually find Him (poor Mary).
And here's twelve-year-old Jesus, whom they probably expect to be huddled in a corner somewhere crying, confused, feeling downright lost. And instead, He's chillin' in the the church and says, "Why were you searching for me? Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?"
Naturally that didn't go over so well with His frantic parents.
I don't know if Jesus planned to stay behind, or just got so caught up in being in His Father's house that He missed the caravan. Whatever the reason, and despite what His family thought, He was never lost at all.
And in Christ, the same goes for us.
"If I say, 'Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,' even the darkness will not be dark to You; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to You." | Psalm 139:11-12
Surely I've gone beyond anyone's reach.
Surely this darkness is too dark for anyone to see me.
Surely this time I'm too far, too hidden, too lost.
Whether the darkness is of our own creation, or we were dragged into it kicking and screaming; whether we are lost because we wandered off the path, or because those who walked with us suddenly left, or because some dark shadow stole our map and our light and our breath; we are not, in truth, lost. Not to Him who sees in the dark and guides the blind. He sees us clawing about, and He isn't baffled. He created light out of nothing; who are we to think that our darkness is too dark for Him?
"Even there Your hand will guide me, Your right hand will hold me fast" (Psalm 139:10).
When our hand cannot hold on any longer; when our eyes cannot see more than an inch in front of our face; when we've wandered in circles and lost our true North, we are not lost to El Roi -- the God who sees. His hand holds us fast, and we can never really be lost at all.
"Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of His great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing." | Isaiah 40:26
