A Seeker

I have worn Rigid Gas Permeable (RGP) contact lenses since the eighth grade.

I’ve worn my contacts everywhere. I even took them with me during field training exercises in ROTC where we spent days out in the middle of nowhere. It may not have been the most sanitary conditions for my daily lens cleaning and disinfecting, but I suffered no ill effects.

Lens cleaning has come a long way from when I began my contact lens odyssey. For years, I had to use separate cleaners and conditioning solutions. I’d remove a lens, wet it with water, put a few drops of cleaner on it, rub for twenty seconds per side (at least that’s what the instructions said…) then rinse with water, drop it in the lens case and fill the case with conditioning/disinfecting solution. I’d repeat this with the other lens. A few years back, however, they introduced a multi-purpose solution that would do both. I still had to rub my lenses with the solution then rinse, but only had one bottle to open.

This was progress.

But what always fascinated me was the prospect of letting something ELSE clean my lenses. I distinctly remember finding a battery-powered apparatus many years ago in a drugstore. You filled it with your solution and added cleaner and it rubbed the lenses with a foam disc for you! I did the math and realized how expensive it would be to use up so much conditioning solution per day and decided to forgo it.

I’ve never seen another since.

Well, lately, I’ve discovered a new solution that does the next best thing and is compatible with my RGP lenses. I place both my lenses in a little basket that I drop in a container filled with a solution. A disk at the bottom of the basket begins to let off gas and the resulting bubbles pummel the lenses clean over the next few hours. The next morning…clean lenses!

With all this in the back of my mind, I popped out my right lens the other night and attempted to put it in the basket just like I’ve done innumerable times before.

PLINK!

The featherweight lens decided to land in the sink.

I am familiar with that sound, having dropped my lenses more than a few times. It’s a scary sound, but is usually followed by a sigh of relief as I pick up the tiny lens from the bowl.

However, I quickly took notice of two things. Number one, a quick glance at the sink didn’t reveal where the lens was. Second, the drain was open.

The drain was WIDE open.

Not good.

As calmly as I could, I removed my other lens (being near-sighted is an advantage at this point) and searched all over again. Maybe it landed on the floor, on the toilet lid, or the trashcan.

But I knew the truth; it heard it plink into the sink and it must have slid down to the open stopper.

It was times like this that I wished I used disposable lenses…

Actually, this is my third set of lenses. My first pair I got in eighth grade, the second set I got in college, and I got these just a few years ago. I have always prided myself at NEVER losing a lens.

I have gone to great lengths to find a missing lens. I once found one during a middle school lunch period in the middle of the concrete bullpen. I’ve even found one sticking to the trash liner of our bathroom receptacle. I wasn’t about to give up without a fight.

I hadn’t run any water, so I knew that there was still a chance to recover it, but that it would involve taking out the plumbing. I explained the situation to my wife Kathy and asked her to bring my tool bag up from the garage.

As she went to get my tools, I removed all the stuff in the cabinet under the sink and looked at the situation. My first hunch was that the lens might be stuck to the stopper and so I unscrewed the housing underneath and gently, gently, gently lifted the stopper up and away.

Nobody ever cleans their stoppers. As you could imagine, there was stuff that is better left unsaid.

I looked carefully at one side of the stopper. Nothing.

I then turned it ever so slowly as I scanned the damp and grimy surface. I was about to give up hope when I finally saw the lens stuck on a green patch of something.

To say that I felt immense relief is an understatement. I was so happy to get my hands on that little speck of plastic that I felt like singing.

I quickly plugged up the sink and scrubbed the lens THOUROUGLY before placing it with its twin for their nightly bubble bath.

Isn’t that what God does for us? When we go off on our own path and lose ourselves to the world, God never takes His eyes off us. When we allow ourselves to be found, He rejoices and cleanses us of all our wrongdoings.

I am grateful for a Father God who doesn’t easily give up on us, a Holy Spirit who helps lead us back on to the right track and for a Savior who provides the only thing that’ll clean us up.

How do you feel when you find something long thought lost?

How can believing that God is searching for you revolutionize your life?

The following passage of scripture has Jesus telling THREE separate illustrations of this point to a single audience. In light of that, how important do you think it was to Jesus that He got this message across?

Joe

Luke 15
Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach. This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people—even eating with them!

So Jesus told them this story: “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!

Parable of the Lost Coin
“Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Won’t she light a lamp and sweep the entire house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she will call in her friends and neighbors and say, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost coin.’ In the same way, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels when even one sinner repents.”

Parable of the Lost Son
To illustrate the point further, Jesus told them this story: “A man had two sons. The younger son told his father, ‘I want my share of your estate now before you die.’ So his father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons.

“A few days later this younger son packed all his belongings and moved to a distant land, and there he wasted all his money in wild living. About the time his money ran out, a great famine swept over the land, and he began to starve. He persuaded a local farmer to hire him, and the man sent him into his fields to feed the pigs. The young man became so hungry that even the pods he was feeding the pigs looked good to him. But no one gave him anything.

“When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, ‘At home even the hired servants have food enough to spare, and here I am dying of hunger! I will go home to my father and say, “Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired servant.” ’

“So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him. His son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son.’

“But his father said to the servants, ‘Quick! Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet. And kill the calf we have been fattening. We must celebrate with a feast, for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found.’ So the party began.

“Meanwhile, the older son was in the fields working. When he returned home, he heard music and dancing in the house, and he asked one of the servants what was going on. ‘Your brother is back,’ he was told, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf. We are celebrating because of his safe return.’

“The older brother was angry and wouldn’t go in. His father came out and begged him, but he replied, ‘All these years I’ve slaved for you and never once refused to do a single thing you told me to. And in all that time you never gave me even one young goat for a feast with my friends. Yet when this son of yours comes back after squandering your money on prostitutes, you celebrate by killing the fattened calf!’

“His father said to him, ‘Look, dear son, you have always stayed by me, and everything I have is yours. We had to celebrate this happy day. For your brother was dead and has come back to life! He was lost, but now he is found!’ ”

NLTse