Be The Connector
I grew up in Redneckville, Georgia. Population: I can’t even count that high!
You knew you were entering my hometown miles and miles before you got to the city limits. (We prided our selves in calling our 1 stop light town a “city”.) Because of the large population of cattle, chicken, hogs and horses, and who knows what else, you could smell my hometown from the next state over. No kidding, during the late spring and early summer months when farmers were spreading manure in the fields to help the hay grow, the stench would stick around for weeks and spread for miles! You can imagine how unbearable the smell could have become. And the smell of chicken houses!…I just won’t even go there.
Once you drove through the town you would see lots of pickup trucks, four wheelers, mom and pop stores, and lots of farmland. And every person you drove by would wave their hand at you in a friendly gesture. A lot like Mayberry. Barbecue and fried chicken is the food of choice. And every weekend is filled with high school sports, local racing, fishing, and date nights to Wal-Mart (30 minutes away). Friendly town with friendly people.
But you had to be careful driving down the county roads. Not only did you have to be on the lookout for deer, opossum, raccoons, and other wildlife in or near the road, but you also had to look out for farm animals as well.
There have been many times that I have driven down the roads of my hometown and seen cows outside of their fences, grazing along the side of the road. Heck, I’ve had to slam on my brakes several times because the cows were in the road! Try driving home at midnight from a high school basketball game and having to weave in and out of black Angus cattle standing in the middle of the road! My life flashed before my eyes!
As the cattle are grazing outside of their fences, and along the side of the road, they are clueless to the danger that lies ahead. They have no idea what trouble faces them if they venture too far outside the realm of their enclosed world. I don’t think they woke up that morning thinking of ways to get lost on that day. They just had their heads down, eating grass, and were preoccupied with what was before their eyes.
We have a generation of people who are preoccupied with life, their job, and too busy thinking about what others think of them to even care that they’ve strayed away from the safe confines of the fence. There are so many people in our workplaces, schools, churches, family, and network of friends that are worried about keeping their outside appearances great, their marriages intact, trying to keep their kids off drugs, you fill in the blank, to even consider those people who have ventured beyond the fences and are in danger of losing their life.
In Luke 15 Jesus talks about a lost farm animal. A sheep. In fact, He also talks about a lost coin and a lost son. Jesus must really want our attention on the lost.
Examine verses 4 through 7, of chapter 15, in the Book of Luke.
“Suppose a man has 100 sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the 99 sheep grazing in the pasture and look for the lost sheep until he finds it? When he finds it, he’s happy. He puts that sheep on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says to them, ‘Let’s celebrate! I’ve found my lost sheep!’ I can guarantee that there will be more happiness in heaven over one person who turns to God and changes the way he thinks and acts than over 99 people who already have turned to God and have his approval.” (GWT)
The lost sheep need a loving shepherd. Lost sinners need a loving Savior. That is what Jesus is. He’s our Savior, our Shepherd. Emmanuel, God With Us. He wants to see the lost found and returned back to His safe keeping.
In Luke, chapter 19, verse 10, we read that “The Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”
In Mark, chapter 2, verse 17, we read that “He has not come for the righteous, but for the sinners.”
There are lots of people in the world today who are lost. Not because they want to be, but because they are careless, like the story of the woman who loses her coin. Our job is not to criticize those who are lost, or even to point fingers and blame them for being lost. Instead we are to bridge the divide and help restore what is rightfully God’s; this lost and broken world.
Whether you’ve been preoccupied, or whether somebody you know has been careless, the great task remains. It is our job to find the lost and return them to a loving Shepherd.
Our job is to be a connector. To take the hand of a loving Savior and the hands of the broken world, and connect them. To reconcile them through the cross of Jesus Christ. And to help those who were found, back into an authentic relationship with Him.
