Welcome to Buoy, a Life in Deeper Water podcast.

Episode 99. Okay Human, Find the One Who Is Lost With Me (let’s leave the 99)

Hello human.

Are you a shepherd?

Consider this.

“Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.” Luke 15:4-7

These are the words of Jesus. A parable he gave to two different audiences.  In Luke, to an audience of tax collectors and sinners. Picture the Pharisees and teachers muttering their disdain from the shadows, the corners, along the walls, about how he would sit with sinners and share a table with them.

God Showed Me How to be Found From a Very Young Age.

God began showing me how to be found from a very young age.

Like when I was six, the first time I said “Father,” and reached out for Him.

Personal reflection:  I have been writing to chronicle my childhood experiences in how my Abba, Father was raising me up spiritually. When I was 6 the courts ruled, I leave my family to go live with my birth mother. It’s a story for another time, and a longer work, except for one thing. I cried louder than I ever had before. And I felt I had no say in that crying. A messy outburst of my heart all over my face. I was overwhelmed with feelings of abandonment. It was the first hard spiritual thing I remember doing, when I reached for Him, when I cried out for Him. I knew who He was. And I wanted Him to find me. He did not deliver me from it, but He took me through it, for a reason. Six years from then, my birth mother would need me for a harder spiritual thing.

God showed me how to be found from a very young age.

Like when I was seven, when I got lost on a trail ride.

Personal reflection:

When I was seven years old, I got lost on a white horse. The last thing I saw was my brother trotting around the bend on his frisky cocoa ride. I was trailing behind the pack, losing ground quickly on a dusty road winding its way through the August Texhoma sun. After two hours… it was not my dad who found me. His banker friend Jim did. He was a tall, thick-framed man with a big voice. I hugged him like he was my dad. He laughed to make me feel lighter inside. I was pretty sure he didn’t know anything about horses, but it didn’t matter.

I felt found.

God showed me how to be found from a young age.

Like when I was 12, I understood more about why God did not deliver me at age six.

Personal reflection:  It was so that I would be there for my birth mother, for our middle of the night conversations about salvation, about faith, grace, and the doubt that seeps in like water flooding a basement. The doubt that tries to dilute, erode, defy, and dethrone a sovereign God. A doubt that rushed at her so often, to drown her mind, heart, and soul.

Hello human nature.

The Day I Was Found.

At 4 days old, when I was 6, then 7, when I was 12, and all the days before, in-between and beyond, God led me through the green pastures of Psalm 23, through the quiet waters, the darkest valleys, and this:

Psalm 23:6

 

6 Surely your goodness and love will follow me

    all the days of my life,

and I will dwell in the house of the Lord

    forever.

The God who always goes before followed me with His goodness and love. This was the journey God had prepared for me, long before I memorized it, to grow me toward age 20.

The day I was found a sinner.

I was found unworthy.

I was found wanting.

I was found needing a Savior.

This was the day my heart accepted being part of the Fall in Eden’s garden,

When my soul confessed that I had pulled loose, separated from my Creator.

I was found repentant.

And. This was the day when I was found a saint.

The day when I professed my belief in Jesus, His Son, as Lord of my life.

That moment felt like how a mountain goat must feel when he is balancing on a crevice, without a next move.

I knew my only next move was with God.

It is hard for me to grasp that this is episode 99. When I began BUOY in October 2022, I needed something that God would hold me to, something intimate, that was between me and God. Something that would make me accountable to leaving the 99 to find the lost, the confused, the stranded hearts and minds.

What started as a weekly commitment to share my witness and what I was learning about God, has become a pursuit of His nature, His holiness, a life lived corem deo.

And a pursuit of God’s divine persuasion. The power of His presence in my life to bring His glory to the lives of others.

I believe this is the only way to embrace an earthly life that pulls loose from the shackles of human nature.

As unpopular as being a Christian is today, I love following Jesus. I had secular popularity. I had opportunity. Success. All the earthly things. There are a lot of other roads in this life. I’ve been down many. Jesus has had to come looking for me, He has followed me, and found me, watched over me, when I lost track of Him.

With Jesus I am found.

Knowing God deeply is everything. God has made “that knowing” so precious in my life. With God, I am free to love others, confident that I am doing so as only He created me to do.

I seek knowing others deeply, spiritually. It is an honor.

Leaving the 99 reminds me that I have to leave the mainstream, the crowd, all the people I care about and shepherd, those who love Jesus too, to find one human at a time.

I have to find the one who is lost.

The one who does not know Jesus, who has not claimed our Creator.

The one who cannot rest in His redemption.

The one who cannot draw from His comfort, from His courage, His humility, His suffering.

The one who does not believe in the One. This is the divine undercurrent that has carried mywitness99journey to this point. With 99 BUOYs along the way.

The Power of Our Witness

So, I ask, “Can I get a witness?” Read Hebrews Chapter 11 for the roll call of Biblical people, commended for their faith. People who moved past their self-guided desires to respond to God’s call (His divine persuasion) and their role in His story.

I believe that sharing our witness of how God is moving in our lives, what He enables us to do, how He loves us, how He holds us, encourages us, and persuades us into action throughout this earthly life, is the highest purpose for our lives. To show the love of His Son to others so they might believe.

So they might be found.

In this we join that cloud of witnesses, that spirit of testimony that says, “this is God in me, brother”, “this is Jesus loving you, sister” …. See His glory and respond.

Hebrews 12:1-2

 

12 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,

2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Take On a Spiritual Challenge You Can’t Do Without God

Take on a spiritual challenge you can’t do without God. I am not talking about the temporal challenges and problems that come at you, that consume you, that are about you. I am talking about challenges that make you grow spiritually beyond your earthly troubles. That make you seek a stronger witness to represent His glory.

When I was planning for BUOY, I had to answer to a timeline, how long would I go? Publicly committing to almost two years was not something I could do on my own. But when we entrust it to God, well, this is where a seismic shift happens in living in His joy.

When we care more about knowing God than conquering earthly life, we begin to grow in ways that have been divinely created for the Kingdom lifestyle that is ours through Christ Jesus.

Being accountable to God is a gamechanger.

Jeremiah 32:17

 

Ah, Sovereign LORD, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.

To help you identify your own spiritual challenge, I will be back next week to highlight some surprising spiritual insights, yes, spiritual superfood from mywitness99journey. And I will let you know what to expect in the coming weeks.

Today, I celebrate this first sail, not because it is over. But because reflection is a form of worship.  

One of our pastors in the Outer Banks (thank you Ram-own) finished an amazing message on God’s holiness yesterday by posing this question.

Whose life will be changed because I pursued holiness?

Thank you human, for listening, for loving our God, together.

Let’s pursue His holiness.