An awful feeling spreads abroad. Where was he last seen? What can be done? Everyone who can do so rallies to join in the search. And who would grudge any effort at such a time? Perhaps a great deal of toil and time may be spent tramping in wrong directions and in mistaken efforts. But what does that matter? A life is at stake!
“It’s all in it,” as the people of the bush would say.
To Seek And To Save That Which Was Lost
One day when travelling in a train in Western Queensland the writer was talking to several bushmen about the things that matter most. One of them who had been drinking freely, revealed some of his troubles and bitter disappointments. Among other troubles, he had been deserted by his wife, but he did not blame her.
“There’s no hope now,” he said, “I’ll just go on drinking ’till the end. I’m lost.”
“Well, they don’t get out a search party to look for the people who are living peacefully at home. It’s the man who is lost that they look for! If you are lost you’re just the man that God is seeking. The Lord said that He had come “to seek and to save that which was lost.”
In the parable long ago it was the Shepherd who found the sheep, not the sheep that found the Shepherd. That sheep was lost and weak and helpless. It neither knew the way nor had the strength to find it. Then the shepherd carried the sheep back home. He not only knew the way, but to the lost sheep he was himself The Way. There was no other hope.
That is a picture of ourselves. If God does not look for us we have no chance of ever finding our own way to Him and to His everlasting Home.
The Way Of Life
In the wide spaces of Australia there are many who are wandering through life like a man lost in the bush. Somewhere, they know there is a better life, a life that answers to the deep longings of the human heart. There is a way that leads to lasting satisfaction, to genuine happiness and something that is really worthwhile.
That way is called in the Bible the “way of peace” and “the way of life”. The only alternative leads to disappointment, trouble and doom. It is called the “way of death”.
A man who is lost knows only too well that disappointment and death will be his portion unless somehow he finds the way to civilization and life before it is too late, and he can never rest until he finds that way.
Can we rest until we find “the way of life” itself?
How can we find the way? That is the most important question in the world, and it is this question we are seeking to answer now.
Does anything else really matter?
Written: W. Arnold Long
from The Bushman’s Guide
Acknowledgement : CHRISTIAN BOOK ROOM
P.O. Box 95413 T.S.T. Kowloon Hong Kong S.A.R.of China
Illustration by Kristal Wu