We woke one morning to find that we had a strange visiting dog. It was lost. It was obvious that it was loved because it was well fed, if not a little too well, it was wearing a jacket to keep it warm and a clean shining coat told of loving care. There were however some scars from some sort of fight in his distant past.
We made many phone calls to several neighbours with no success. Our next strategy was to place a photo on Facebook in the hope that many of my friends would share the photo and the owner would contact us.
Later that night my son received a call from the owner. It turned out that the dog had been recently staying with the owner’s brother and it seems that it wanted to return there. It had got lost on its way back and had travelled many miles before stopping at our place.
As I thought about the dog and its journey, I realised that it was a lot like many humans.
We are all loved by our God. He looks after us and He cares for us even if we don’t acknowledge that care or love. Like the dog we run off, chasing other loves and desires and we get lost and hurt.
How do we find our way home? Unlike the dog, our owner (God) knows exactly where we are and He will reach out and rescue us. Psalm 139:2-4 tells us that God “Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways for there is not a word in my tongue but, lo, oh Lord, thou knowest it altogether.”
We are never far from our loving Father.