Help is calling

     Recently I read a news story about a man who went hiking in the mountains and got lost.  People searching for him tried to call him on his cell phone as there was a chance he might have service in the area, but to no avail no one answered.  After several more days, the man was later found and recovered alive.  He told his rescuers that he had received their calls, but because he did not recognize the phone number he didn't answer the calls (we are so conditioned to ignore solicitors).   It seems so silly in retrospect that this man spent several more nights in the woods and could have potentially died all because he didn't recognize the phone number of the caller but we are really no different when it comes to God.

    God is desperately trying to reach us in our times of fear, darkness and loneliness.  He wants to rescue us from our despair over our past sins and current problems.   Too often, however, we don't "pick up" on his call all because we don't recognize Him working in our lives (or may be we do but we are too stubborn to let God be the rescuer).  He wants to restore us and save us.  

Jesus cried over Jerusalem as he approached the city saying, 

"Jerusalem! Jerusalem!  Killer of the prophets and those sent to you!  How often I wanted to gather you like a hen gathers her chicks under her wings but you would not!"

   He cries over you too in much the same way! 

    Unlike, the rescuers in the story, God doesn't hang up on us and stop trying.  Instead, as Jesus said, 

"He leaves the 99 in the pasture and pursues the one lost sheep and searches for it until he has found it.  When he finds it he puts it on his shoulders and tells his friends, "Come and celebrate with me for I have found my lost sheep!"