Many people, when they first hear the story from Luke 15, about the lost coin, wonder, “What’s the big deal? The crevices in my couch and the floorboards of my car are full of coins.”
“Or what woman, if she has ten silver coins and loses one coin,
does not light a lamp and sweep the house and
search carefully until she finds it?
“When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors,
saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin which I had lost!’
“In the same way, I tell you, there is joy
in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
(Luke 15:8-10)
This coin, though, wasn’t just pocket change. A drachma represented
a day’s wages for a common worker, and a day’s worth of supplies for this woman’s household. The ten coins very likely made up her entire estate.
I recently had an experience that gave me a much greater appreciation for the woman’s pain when her coin was lost and joy when it was found. A friend gave us her camera card so we could copy some pictures that she had taken. I sat down in a chair and began to open my computer so I could copy the picture files. I put the little blue chip on the chair arm. My computer’s battery was dead, so I got up to get my power supply. When I sat back down the card was gone. I looked under the chair, around the chair on and under the table where my power supply had been. I moved the chair, and looked everywhere I could think of. My wife came in and asked me, “Is it here?” “Could it be there?” I got a flashlight and crawled around in the floor. I started looking places where I knew the postage-stamp sized storage device couldn’t be, because I had looked everywhere that it could be. I searched my pockets at least ten times, and searched the pockets of the pants and shirt I had had on before the whole thing began, even though I was sure that I had already hung those clothes up before I got the chip from Kathy. I searched for an hour, then Kathy and I both searched for another two. Like the woman in the story, we swept the place repeatedly.
Finally Kathy found it.
When I plugged the charger in I had apparently put it down on a book near the receptacle. Kathy was straightening up before company arrived, and put the book on a shelf. In desperation she took the books off the shelf. She really had no hope she would find it, but there it was in all its blue and gold glory.
I could buy a new camera card for a few dollars, but I couldn’t buy that one, the one with my friend’s pictures on it. For at least half the time that I was searching I was mentally composing an apology to my friend. We didn’t throw a party when we found it, but we did feel like. We did stop and offer thanks to God. In addition to writing mea culpas, I had prayed that the Lord would help us find the treasure. I’m thankful even as I write this.
What I find most amazing about this Bible story is that is me, a sinner who repented and came to faith in the Lord that was (is) the cause of such joy in heaven. As we searched for the camera card, it just sat there on the shelf, totally passive. The Lord reaches out to us and desires that we would turn to Him. He is seeking. It is not that God doesn’t know where you are, but He is desirous that you turn to Him. Find out more here.
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