When was the last time you lost something important?

Today Jesus tells two stories about things that are lost - the sheep and the silver coin. God is portrayed as a shepherd. Yet, once the shepherd finds the lost sheep, he does not get angry at it; instead he rejoices. In the second story, God is likened to a woman. She searches for a silver coin, approximately one day's wage. Once the coin is found, she cannot help but share her joy with others. Both stories end in joy because what was lost has been found.

In life, when we choose what is not good, what is not healthy or what is not loving, we draw away from God. Yet God is not content with this. Rather, the Lord yearns to find us, to be reconciled with us.

Jesus chooses to eat with sinners not because they deserve his company, but because such actions reveal God's abundant mercy toward us, especially when we are lost.

We do not belong to ourselves, Paul reminds us, but to the Lord. It only makes sense then, that when we stray, the Lord seeks to find us. God desires that all we do in this life, be done in relation to Christ, that we remain reconciled to the shepherdˇKthat we remain in his embrace.