Three-year-old Joseph Leffler told his mother his was going fishing. She thought the idea was cute, and smiled as she watched him walk out into the back yard with his three-foot-long plastic pipe—his favorite pretend fishing rod. That was Friday at 1:00 p.m. When she couldn’t find him an hour later, she became worried.
When she had not found him by sundown, she became frantic.
Joseph Leffler was lost in the woods outside Estacada, Oregon. A massive search began, and the progress of the search dominated the news throughout the weekend. As Friday night gave way to Saturday, and Saturday passed into Sunday morning, worries only intensified. How long could a three-year-old survive in the wild forest?
Then, just before noon on Sunday, little Joseph came walking out of the woods and came straight up to one of the searchers. “I had to look twice,” said Judy Magill, who was coordinating the search dogs. “I couldn’t believe this little boy was walking toward me. He stretched out his arms and I picked him up,” she said.
A front-page picture showed little Joseph in his mother’s arms. He looked bewildered but well. Above the picture in bold black letters the newspaper headline read: “Lost Boy Finds Searcher.”
I love that headline. It’s a perfect way to describe the beginning of a relationship with God. When we make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, we find the Searcher. When we finally reach out to him, we discover that He’s been reaching out to us all along.
And God wants the churches that represent him to join him on that search. This Sunday we’re going to look at King Hezekiah. In 2 Chronicles 30, when a great spiritual awakening happened in Judah, this good king longed to invite those who were far from God into this awakening, too. As we look at this important chapter, we’ll see some principles we need to apply in our own lives and in our church. Join us this Sunday at 10am!
Click here to watch the slide show of my mission trip to Zambia
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Each Wednesday I post my article from "Winning Ways," an e-newsletter that goes out to over 950 subscribers. If you want to subscribe to "Winning Ways," sign up here.
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