“But I don’t want to!” Charlie answered his mother. She had just told him to come in the house, since it looked like it was going to rain.
As she went back into the house, Charlie said to himself, “I’m having fun out here with my wagon. It’s no fun in the house. I know, I’ll go down the street so she won’t see me.”
Charlie started off down the street, pulling his wagon. Down a ways, the street ended at a large, open field with woods all around it. He had been down there on picnics with his family, but never by himself. A path led from the street to a little bridge which crossed a stream. The path crossed the field over to the woods. Pulling his wagon, Charlie followed the path across the bridge and out into the field. Finding pretty, wild flowers along the path, he picked some and put them in the wagon. Looking for more flowers, Charlie was soon off the path and getting farther and farther away from home.
A little later, Charlie’s mother realized that he had not obeyed her. She went to the door again, but he was nowhere in sight. She sent Kristin, Charlie’s older sister, out to look for him. While Kristin was looking for Charlie around their house, he was wandering deeper in the woods.
Suddenly, Charlie realized that he was lost. First, he had gone off the path to pick dandelions in the field. Then, just at the edge of the woods, he had found bright, yellow buttercups. Deeper in the woods, he had found pretty, blue violets and some other flowers. Now, he didn’t know where he was.
Suddenly, there was a flash of lightning followed by a loud clap of thunder. Then there was another flash, this time much closer. The next blinding flash was so close that it frightened Charlie, and he began to cry.
The first big drops of rain were cold. Even under the trees, the heavy thunderstorm soon soaked Charlie. The wind blew hard, making him shiver. The lightning and loud thunder claps scared him. He tripped and fell in the mud, and branches tore at his clothes. Poor Charlie was a miserable little boy! Oh, how he wished that he hadn’t said, “I don’t want to.” He wanted to be in his dry, warm house with his mother holding him, but he couldn’t find his way home. Then as he stumbled along, still pulling his wagon, he fell and cut his hand on a stone. It really frightened him when he saw the blood smeared all over his hand and dirty, wet clothes.
Finally, he couldn’t walk any farther. He sat down in his wagon under a tree and cried. Then he prayed a simple little prayer—“Please, God, help me!” adding, “and I’m sorry I didn’t listen to my mother.” That was the last thing he remembered as he fell into an exhausted sleep.
When he woke up, he was in a hospital room. His muddy clothes were gone, and he was warm, dry and clean. Beside him was a doctor and a nurse. His worried mother and father were standing at the end of the bed. The doctor was saying, “He will be all right now. He can probably go home tomorrow.”
After the doctor and nurse left, Charlie heard what had happened. When Kristin couldn’t find him, his mother had gone out to look for him. When she couldn’t find him either, she called the police. He had been gone for several hours when they found him in the woods under the tree. He had been rushed to the hospital, and now it was late the same evening. Charlie had to spend the night in the hospital.
A few days later, the family was reading in the Bible in Luke chapters 15. The story was about the prodigal son, in verses 11-32. When they finished reading, Charlie said, “I think I know what the boy in the story felt like when he wanted to get back. That’s how I felt in the woods!”
His father commented, “Yes, Charlie, I guess you know something about it. And I know something about how the father in the story felt when his son returned.”
Charlie asked his mother, “But what made you so glad to get me back, since I had been so bad?”
Tears filled up his mother’s eyes as she answered, “It is because I love you so much. And that was why the father was so glad to have his son back, in the story we just read.”
That is also why God wants each of us to come to Him. Each one of us is lost and on our way to hell. God loved us so much that He sent the Lord Jesus to die on the cross for us. There He took the punishment for our sins. Now God welcomes us back, because of what His Son has done for us. All we have to do is tell Him we are a sinner, and believe that Jesus was punished for those sins. The blood that He shed on the cross will wash those sins away, if we ask Him to. Then we are no longer lost, but saved and on our way to heaven.
ML-08/02/1981