Lost? God Always Seeks! And Always Finds!

By Sheila Schuller Coleman

It was opening day for Little League. Jim had taken two of our sons, and I was supposed to meet him with the other two at the ballpark. As team mother, I was expected to head the snack shack that Saturday morning. So, after rounding up the myriad uniform pieces for three of our four sons, I dashed out of the house-late as usual.

It took some time for me to get the snack shack up and running, but eventually I had time to break away and see how my sons' opening games were going. I crossed the large expanse of park that housed six baseball fields, looking for my husband. Spotting him, I ran up to him and immediately noticed he didn't have
Nick, our four-year-old, with him.

"Where's Nicky?"

"Nicky? I don't have Nicky. You have Nicky."

"Me? No, I don't! You have him, don't you...?"

Suddenly, we looked at each other in horror as the realization of what we had done hit us. "He's home alone!"

Jim ran to the car. It would take him another fifteen minutes to get home. I
couldn't believe that we had made such a terrible mistake! When he drove into the garage, he saw Nick wandering around the backyard, his hands cupped to the windows. Locked out, he looked longingly into his house, muttering to himself, "I can't believe they left me home alone."

Jim swept him up into his arms. "I'm home, Nick! Are you all right?""Yes. I knew you'd come back for me."

When lost, do you KNOW that Jesus will come back and find you? Think how panicked we were as parents to realize we had left our 4-year-old son home alone for so long. How much more God cares about us when we have lost our way, lost our joy, lost our desire, lost our enthusiasm, lost our passion for our dreams, even lost our faith in Him-if even for a brief time.

Lost? KNOW God loves you as surely as Nicky knew we would come back for him! God always seeks! And He always finds! Lost? God Always Seeks! And Always Finds!

You Are God's Dream!

By Dr. Robert H. Schuller

I really believe that God is before me, behind me, and around me. One thing I know—I never asked to be born. I did not choose my father or mother. I did not choose my race, the color of my skin, or the language that I learned as a child. I did not choose the community in which I was born and raised. I did not choose the school I attended from the first grade through high school.

I have become increasingly aware throughout my life of one sentence that God has whispered to me time and time again: "You have not chosen me... I have chosen YOU!"

I believe powerfully in God's sense of destiny for our lives. You are God's glorious idea. You are God's wondrous dream! What miracle will He perform with and through you and me TODAY and TOMORROW?

The poet Louise Fletcher once wrote, "I wish that there were some wonderful place called the Land of Beginning Again, where all our mistakes and all our heartaches and all of our grief could be dropped like a shabby old coat at the door and never put on again." Well, there is such a place. It is called NOW. In His mercy, God has granted each of us a new beginning at the dawn of each new day. When God is present within us, all things become new! Hallelujah!

Watch a Ripple Turn into a Wave of New Ideas

Some years ago I took a trip to Israel. One morning while there, I took a motorboat ride across the Sea of Galilee. Suddenly, in the middle of the lake, the operator of the boat cut the motor. I wondered for a moment if we were out of gas. When I inquired, the man said, "No. I thought it would be nice, Dr. Schuller, if you could just listen to the quietness out here." Soon the boat stopped rocking and the only sounds we heard were those of water lapping gently against the stern of the boat and the magnificent silence of the centuries as we sat in the very same sea Jesus had fished more than 2,000 years earlier.

We may think we know the answers to all of the important questions in our lives. We may think we have our philosophies, ideologies, theology, and psychology all neatly packaged and labeled and feel safe and secure in our knowledge. That's when it's time to cut the motor, to pause and be still and recognize the mighty presence of God, and to ask ourselves: "Am I ready for a new idea?"

Summer offers you and me an opportunity to slow down, to cut the motors of our busy lives, to sit expectantly allowing the ripple of quietness to inspire within us a wave of new ideas. Who knows where just one thought, one new idea, might take you or me in the weeks, months, and years ahead if we stop long enough to let God speak in the summer quiet.

- Robert H. Schuller