Seventh-day Adventist® Church

When I nipped home for lunch, I saw a programme on TV, and they were talking about a missing piglet!

The discussion was based on the idea that the piglet had been taken, or had run away. Then one presenter suggested that the piglet was just lost. It had wondered away unintentionally and had become lost. It didn't know its way home.

This reminds me of the stories in Luke 15 of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son. In all stories the shepherd, the woman, and the father were looking for what was lost. In the lost son story, the son realised his error in leaving his father, and returned home to a welcome reception.

For our morning worship today, my kids and I read a nature devotional book. The illustration was about salmon who swim from the place they were born, cruise the ocean seas, and then find their way back to the very stream they were born, to continue the reproduction cycle.

An experiment was quoted where they removed the smelling part of some of the salmon on one stream. Some of the sample salmon were not operated on. The "normal" salmon were released with the "modified" fish.

The normal salmon found their way to the exact stream they were born, while only about half of the modified salmon managed to get back "home".

Scientists say it is this smelling part of the fish, the olfactory, that guides them back home. The particles in the water make up a smell that they recognise, and they are able to trace this right back home.

Piglets may wonder off, and so might sheep, and there is a search for all (or most?) things we lose. But like the lost son, and the salmon, we can come to our senses, to "smell the coffee" as the saying goes, to wake up to our distance from God. And when we venture to return home, I believe we will get a celebratory welcome.

If you feel it is time to "swim home", finish reading this, click the link below, read the stories, and talk to God (say a prayer), something like:

Dear God
I have found myself wandering away from you. I know you will be happy to have me back. I just find it hard to be sure of that. But here I am. I am ready for you to show you love me. I am ready to return to a relationship with you. Thank you for your forgiveness. Thank you for your promises. Thank you for your returning presence in my life.
Amen

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke+15&version=NIVUK

-Pr Nathan Stickland

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