A very good friend of mine asked me to share a story I had all but forgotten. He remembered the story as a window into the heart of a God who would and will do anything to get us back. The story is really a precursor to my own “I was lost, but now I am found” story.
I am now 65, but this story goes way back to when my son Mike, who is now 35, was maybe six or seven years old. Those of you with big families who take cross country car trips will understand this. If you’ve seen Chevy Chase in the movie Vacation, then you can picture it well.
We’re traveling all day and night on a trip to Colorado for some Rocky Mountain skiing. We’re driving our conversion van with all the kids, all our stuff, all the skis, sleeping bags, food, pillows, movies (VHS), EVERYTHING—whether we need it or not. The only stops we make are if we need gas or DAD has to go to the bathroom. It’s night time, all the kids have found a place to crawl into their sleeping bags (pre-seat belt days).
Somewhere in the middle of Nebraska I need gas and a bathroom break. I pull into a truck stop and yell towards the back of the van, “Everyone out, this is a bathroom break.” I jump out and go in. Of course it takes everyone else longer, it always does. I’m back in the driver’s seat waiting for the rest to dribble back in. Looking in the rear-view mirror at the pile of luggage, pillows and sleeping bags, I yell, “Is everyone in?” I hear lots of “yeah,” so off we go into the night.
I’m unaware that my son Mike is still at the truck stop. Fifty miles down the road one of the girls wakes up and asks, “Where is Mike?” I answer, “Check his sleeping bag.” “No, he isn’t there.” “WHAT!!” I scream, “MIKE, wherever you are, WAKE UP!” I pull off the road and pull the van apart. My heart drops to my feet. “What have I done?”
This is in the pre-cell phone days, so I have no way to communicate with the truck stop. All at once my distraction-driven life comes into complete focus. I have to get back to him as fast as I can. I start thinking of the possible outcomes of this and I feel sick inside. A truck stop is no place for a young child in the middle of the night.
Needless to say, I get back to the truck stop faster than I left. I jump from the van, run in the front door, the clerk just points toward the back room, I run in… and there he is sitting on the desk talking to two of the staff. One of the staff says, “We figured you would come back…” I scoop Mike up and hold him very, very close.
We see the heart of our heavenly father through the words of Jesus in Matthew 18:12-14, “If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go look for the one who wandered off? And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way your father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost.”
Now hear my story: Before I knew Jesus, he was crucified for me. He rose again and came looking for me. I did not recognize him. I was too distracted by the things of this world. I cannot fathom how deeply this hurt my Lord.
So he waited until my life became so broken I didn’t know which way to turn. In Revelation 3:20, Jesus says, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and he with me.” When I no longer knew which way to turn, the Word of the Lord reached me… and it was as if Jesus himself had scooped me up into his arms and was holding me very, very tight!
The message of Scripture is this: We are all lost in the truck stop distracted by the temptations of this world, and we are in great danger.
But Jesus stands at the door and he knocks. Can you hear him knocking? He is not angry, but his heart is breaking to hold you. He is looking for you, but not because he doesn’t know where you are—he knows exactly where you are. But you are not hearing his knock, so he waits…
You can spend your life in the “Truck Stop”—talking to your friends—or you can hear the knock of Jesus, open the door and experience what Paul described in Romans 8:39. “Neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
And he will scoop you up into his wonderful arms and hold you very, very tight forever.
Doug Thorson is a member of Bethel Lutheran Church in Fergus Falls, MN.