31st Day of Lent- Luke 15:9- Celebration

 

As we finish this parable, I am again reminded of God's searching love that reaches down to the individual heart.  The author mentions a youth group canoe trip.  I've been on many in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area of Minnesota.  In fact, it was on one such  trip that I had my faith in God strengthened greatly. I think I was in the 10th grade and the first night we were laying out on the flat rocks along the shore after dark, looking up at the stars in heaven.  The youth pastor read from
 Psalm 8, " When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
    the moon and the stars that you have established;
     what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
    mortals that you care for them? "
It was then that it struck me.  God, the creator of the vast universe, actually cares for me.  God, in Christ, came  to earth for me.  That still amazes me every day.  The parable concludes, "Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."  There must have been great joy in heaven that night as I was laying on those rocks.  There is a celebration every time a lost one is found- or in many cases- found again.  Thanks be to God that God did not stay apart from us in heaven, but has come down seeking each one of us.