One afternoon as Debbie was walking home from school she found a stray puppy. It was just sitting on the grass in an empty lot. She stopped and petted it for a few minutes. It even rolled over and let her scratch its tummy.
Debbie started walking home and only had gone a little way when she noticed the puppy following her. “You’d better go home,” Debbie told him and started on her way again. But when she looked back, the puppy was still following her.
The puppy was lost and did not know which way to go. It followed her all the way home.
“Look what followed me home from school, Mom! Can we keep him?”
Her mother picked up the puppy and looked him over. Then she said to Debbie, “He looks well-cared for, Debbie. Although he doesn’t have a tag on his collar, I’m sure he has a home. He belongs to someone maybe a boy or a girl just like you. Let’s keep him here and see if we can find his owner.”
After giving the puppy something to eat, Debbie put him in the garage to keep him from running away.
“How can we find out who he belongs to?” she asked.
“I guess the best way is to make some signs and put them up where people will see them. You can start making some signs right now, if you want to.”
Debbie sat at the kitchen table and worked on a sign. It read:
FOUND: BROWN AND WHITE PUPPY
CALL: 367-2905
Debbie made up five of these signs and walked back along the way to school. She got permission to put three of the signs in store windows that she passed. Then she hung one sign on an old nail in a tree in the empty lot where she first found the puppy. She took the last sign to school with her the next morning and tacked it on the bulletin board.
Two days passed, and no one called about the lost puppy. But then on the third day the mother of a little boy called. She had seen the sign in one of the store windows. When she described the puppy they had lost to Debbie’s mother, it sounded like the puppy Debbie had found. “We’ll come right over to see,” the lady said.
Fifteen minutes later they drove into the driveway. Debbie was glad to take the little boy out to the garage to show him the puppy. When the puppy and the boy saw each other the boy yelled, “Nickie, I found you!” The puppy barked and wagged his tail with delight and licked every part of the boy he could reach. Soon a happy boy and his puppy were on their way home together.
Like the little puppy, there are lost children. But instead of being lost from home, they are lost in sin and do not know which way to turn. But the Lord Jesus loves big and little children and wants to take them in His arms and save them. He says, “The Son of man [the Lord Jesus] is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” Luke 19:1010For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. (Luke 19:10).
When the little boy and the lost puppy found each other, they were happy. When the lost sinner and the seeking Saviour meet, how wonderful it is. The Lord Jesus died so that we can have our sins washed away. God will accept us when our sins are gone. He brings us into His house of love, feeds us, takes care of us and makes us happy. This happiness will go on forever for those who accept Him as their Saviour. They will be with Him in heaven for eternity.
ML-08/25/1985