Let Yourself Be Found

Let my cry come before you, O LORD; give me understanding according to your word! Let my plea come before you; deliver me according to your word. My lips will pour forth praise, for you teach me your statutes. My tongue will sing of your word, for all your commandments are right. Let your hand be ready to help me, for I have chosen your precepts. I long for your salvation, O LORD, and your law is my delight. Let my soul live and praise you, and let your rules help me. I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant, for I do not forget your commandments. (Psalm 119:169-176 ESV). Today is the last stanza in the psalm we have been looking at for the last three weeks. Each of the twenty-two stanzas was used to focus on a particular characteristic of the Lord. By using a letter from the Hebrew alphabet it made it even easier for the Hebrews to memorize each one. It was a very effective teaching tool. It is very fitting that the writer ends his teaching with the characteristic of God’s grace in seeking out the lost. Most of the time, we don’t purposefully wander away. In my life I find that I don’t usually wake up one morning and think to myself, “Today I’m going to run away from God.” It’s usually those things that look good at first that draw my attention away form Him. Once again, we are like those sheep, which begin to graze further and further away from the fold simply following the path to the grass. At some point we look up and we are completely lost. Temptation is designed to draw us slowly away from the Lord. In its natural state, asbestos is a soft rock consisting of compressed fibers. Because of its fire-resistant qualities, it has had thousands of uses in home and industry over the years. Almost 30 million tons of the material has been used in the United States for insulation since 1900. I remember being impressed as a child with that amazing kind of cloth that doesn’t burn. But even though it has served a beneficial purpose, recent findings show it to be a severe health hazard. According to a Harvard Medical School report, more than 500,000 Americans will die from exposure to the air-borne particles of asbestos. It stated that just because there doesn’t appear to be an immediate problem, the public must not be fooled. Asbestos disease becomes a medical problem when it’s too late to cure it. The symptoms may not show up for 30 years or more. It looked good, but its destructive qualities were hidden within its goodness. The man huddled on the cabin floor was slowly freezing to death. It was high in the Rockies in southwestern Alberta, and outside a blizzard raged. John Elliott had logged miles that day through the deep snows of the mountain passes. As he checked for avalanches and as dusk and exhaustion overcame him he had decided to “hole-up.” He made it wearily to his cabin but somewhat dazed with fatigue; he did not light a fire or remove his wet clothing. As the blizzard blasted through the cracks in the old cabin walls, the sleeping forest ranger sank into oblivion, paralyzed by the pleasure of the storm’s icy caress. Suddenly, however, his dog sprang into action, and with unrelenting whines, finally managed to rouse his near-comatose friend. The dog was John’s constant companion, a St. Bernard, one of a long line of dogs famous for their heroics in times of crisis. “If that dog hadn’t been with me, I’d be dead today,” John Elliott says. “When you’re freezing to death you actually feel warm all over, and don’t wake up because it feels too good. Let today’s reading call you to repentance. No matter how small the sin, how slight the deviation from His path, come back into His will today. He is looking for you. Let yourself be found!