by Cheryce Berg

Lost.

Lost is something that has been taken away or cannot be recovered. Lost is unable to find one’s way. Lost is what all four of these people were.

I met them all, these four, in just ten days. One at a time, all different from me. Different languages or skin color. Different in what they lost—husbands, homes, hope or all three.

God spoke to me just days before setting them each in my path. He brought me to Hagar, in Genesis 16. Hagar was lost. She fled her home and caregivers, and she was lost in the wilderness.

But then she wasn’t. “The angel of the LORD found her by a spring of water in the wilderness…And he said, ‘Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?’” She answers, and he gives her a promise for her unborn son.

Hagar’s response is one of great faith: “So she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, ‘You are a God of seeing.’ for she said, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.’” (Genesis 16:7-13)

Hagar doesn’t stay lost. God finds her and God sees her. God speaks to her and gives her a promise. God sees. God looks after those who are lost.

These four that I met, the ones that were lost, have dark, jagged, gaping holes in their hearts. Holes waiting for hope. Holes that only God can fill.

God set each in my path for only a short bit. Minutes for one, a few hours for the others. I didn’t get to share with them yet all the hope I have found in Jesus. But I told them about a God who sees. A God who looks after them. A God who has found them in their lost-ness.

My words weren’t perfect. There’s more that can still be said, much more. But what the Spirit had revealed to me just days before as I drank from God’s Word—that spring of water in the wilderness—I was still bubbling over with inside. I couldn’t help but share it.

God reminded me, and I reminded them.

If you are lost, know this: He is a God of seeing. He looks after me and you and you. He gathers us to himself. Especially when we are lost.

If you are found, keep drinking deeply from his Word. He will speak to you through it, and you can point the next lost person you see back to a God who sees, a God who knows, a God who saves. My only words of wisdom: Be ready.