(September 10, 2020) Mark Ellis shares an encouraging testimony that reminds that Jesus even cares for ‘lost things’…

In scripture, Jesus tells parables about finding a lost coin, lost sheep, and a lost son.

My wife Sally has found it helpful to pray when somewhat mundane items like car keys or phones have been misplaced, and it seems the Holy Spirit always directs her to their location.

Faith challenged
But her faith was severely challenged recently on a family vacation in San Diego when she lost a pair of swim goggles about 25 yards off shore.

She came in and scanned the Pacific Ocean with a forlorn expression. ‘Why don’t you go out and look for them?’ her daughter-in-law, Rebecca asked.

‘No, that’s a big ocean out there. There’s no way. It’s a needle-in-a-haystack. If you lose something out there it’s gone,’ Sally said. She admitted later she had no faith whatsoever to find the goggles. All she saw was a giant ocean. Even worse, the goggles were dark-coloured and blended with the water and Sally didn’t know if the goggles could float.

An hour later, her son Sam was surfing in a completely different area from the one where his mother lost the goggles. He yelled at his brother, Nate: ‘Hey, Mom lost her goggles. See if you see them.’

Prayer for help
‘They could be at the bottom of the ocean,’ Sam thought to himself. ‘If they do float, maybe I’ll see them. But I would have to be real close, be right on top of them.’ He threw up a prayer to God, ‘Jesus, help me find them.’

Sam took his last wave of the family vacation – and it was a great ride. He fell off the board and then hopped back on another wave to carry him toward shore. As he rode that last wave the goggles suddenly appeared in the foam of the white-water right next to his hand as he was riding past and he scooped them up.

‘Jesus put them right in my hand!’ he exclaimed.

‘Oh my gosh, this is too funny,’ he thought, so he hid the goggles when he approached his mother standing on the beach in her wetsuit.

Much joy to the miracle working God!
‘That was a great wave!’ Sally said. ‘Yeah, but you’ll never believe what I found’ Sam responded.

He held up the goggles and his mother’s jaw dropped. ‘What?’ Sally stammered. ‘That was an hour ago.’

‘I just prayed while I was out there, “Jesus, can you find mom’s goggles”; Sam shared. ‘And on the wave as I was surfing, my hand goes down and hits the water and here they are. He put them right in my hand!’

 

(Sam holds goggles up, standing next to his mother Sally)

They began laughing with the joy of the Lord, recognising that Jesus is the only one who could have put them in Sam’s hand.

‘The amazing thing is that we started our family vacation sitting around a table one whole morning, telling stories of the miracles of Jesus, all the things the young people have seen because they have such faith in him,’ Sally recounts.

‘We started talking about miracles and we ended the vacation with a miracle,’ she adds.

Biggest miracle of all
But the biggest miracle of all is that because of God’s great love for everyone, eternal salvation is found in Jesus Christ!

The scripture mentioned above is Luke 15 and although it mentions finding lost ‘things’ it particularly reveals the heart of Jesus to find lost souls and restore them to fellowship with God!

As John 3:16 declares, ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

 

 

 

I trust you are rejoicing that you have found Jesus as your Saviour!

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Mark Ellis is a seasoned senior correspondent ASSIST News Service (www.assistnews.net) and founder of the acclaimed www.GodReports.com website regularly sharing stories, testimonies and videos from Christians and the church around the world. ____________________________________________________________________________________