Lost and Found
Four Ways to be Lost, but Only One Way to be Found
“There are four ways of being lost,” explained my pastor, “and if you’re paying attention, you’ll see yourself in at least one of them. Maybe even two.”
Would he be surprised to learn that I saw myself in all four?
It surprised me. The rebellious prodigal? Clearly. That one was expected. But the seeking wanderer? The loner? The successful? Turns out, those ones define certain seasons of my life, too, as much as the prodigal does. Even after my heart had been awakened to Jesus.
Fear over AI’s power is finding its way into my various newsfeeds, particularly from creatives. It certainly is unsettling, and I haven’t even really delved into all its capabilities. I’ve watched a few stories involving “deep fakes” and I’ve seen the switch from “essays must be typed” to “essays must be handwritten” in my son’s ELA classes. We’re trying hard to stay ahead and know that what we’re watching and reading is actually human. And while AI might be able to successfully mimic human actions, it can never claim the stories it creates to be from its own lived experiences.
Psalm 107 is about stories. Our stories. The ones we live and share as cautionary tales. The stories that have shaped us and grown us. Psalm 107 is about being lost. And about being found. It’s about the way we long for meaning and search for fulfillment.
And it’s about a merciful compassionate God.
The Lost
Psalm 107 paints pictures of four vignettes. Historically, we can match them up with the stories of the Israelites. Their application, however, extends far beyond that group of people who lived three thousand plus years ago. As my pastor said, “if you’re paying attention,” (and if you’ve lived any length of time) you’ll be able to see yourself in at least one of the illustrations. And better, any who has tasted the sweetness of the Lord’s grace by being rescued from the bondage of sin is counted among the grateful multitude of the redeemed.1
“After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and tongue, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb.” Revelation 7:9
Who are the lost?
They are the ones who wander in desert wastelands searching for meaning in a trackless world…. (v 4-5)2
The loners who sit in the darkness of isolation, prisoners of self-reliance. (v 10-11)3
The rebellious prodigals who despise the wisdom of God, choosing instead to follow the desires of the heart. (v 17)4
And the successful who, despite achievements, cannot rescue themselves from the stormy seas of life. (v 23-26)5
The Wanderers
The wanderers are aimless. Restless. They cannot find their place in life.
I’ve been a wanderer. Like anyone, I never started out in life with the goal of getting lost, but along the way I lost my bearings and couldn’t find home for a long time. As Pastor John MacArthur explains in his sermon on Psalm 107:
“They illustrate then sinners, sinners of every age of any time, even today, who recognize their aimlessness… They’re wandering in the wilderness of sin from place to place, from thrill to thrill, from job to job, from marriage to marriage, relationship to relationship, from experience to experience without ever finding any soul food, without ever finding any lasting satisfaction. They’re trying to find the way to an inhabited city that will satisfy them and give them security and safety but they can’t.”
The Loners
The lost sit in a prison of their own making, chained to their own iniquity. They’ve cast off the wisdom of the Lord and have substituted it with their own foolishness. The loner says, “I don’t need anyone.”
Pastor Martin Slack of Westlake Church Lausanne describes the lost here as “those who get lost in the things that narrow life.” Those shackled to the chains of self-reliance. In his sermon on Psalm 107, Pastor Slack explains:
“As a society, at least in the West, individual freedom and autonomy have become modern day idols. We want to do whatever we want to, and we don’t want to be told what we can and can’t do, to be told otherwise is narrow and bigoted and constricting. But the irony is that when we pursue this rampant individualism, we end up in the darkness of our own prison.”6
“Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment.” Proverbs 18:1
When I decided that I knew best and allowed the pride of self to push the counsel of godly friends away, I became a prisoner of loneliness. “Do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.” (Proverbs 26:12) Pride has done more to injure relationships in my life than I can recount.
Explaining the dangers of spiritual isolation, Desiring God President and Bible teacher Marshall Segal says, “Whenever we isolate ourselves from the perspective, encouragement, and exhortations of others, we open ourselves wide to the deceitfulness of sin. And why is the deceitfulness of sin so compelling? Because Satan studies and preys on our desires. He’s a master gardener, carefully seeding selfishness, discontentment, and bitterness in just the right places.”
How to thwart the enemy in this regard? Segal continues, “The opposite of soul-wrecking isolation, though, is a life deeply rooted in the hearts and counsel of good friends…The most effective and fruitful people are those who distrust themselves enough to diligently seek out guidance…” and to do this often.7
The Rebellious
Of the prodigal, verse 17 of Psalm 107 says they “became fools through their rebellious ways.” My pastor explained the way of becoming a fool as acting in unwise ways as if there are no limits or boundaries and living as if there were no consequences.
In His parable of the two sons, Jesus described the prodigal as setting off for “a distant country” and “squander[ing] his wealth in wild living.” Penniless, he wound up feeding pigs and longed to fill his empty stomach even with the food tossed to swine. This is a perfect summary of a life lived as if there were no limits, boundaries, or consequences. Once the harvest of what had been sown comes in, however, he discovers his folly. (See Luke 15:11-20)
One of my favorite singer/songwriters, Caroline Cobb, paints a picture of the prodigal this way:
“I have been the younger son
Chase my pleasure, chase my fun
Build castles in the sand
My own Promised Land
When my kingdoms crumble down
The famine comes, I bottom out…”8
I, too, chased pleasure and fun, and the castles I made were definitely built on shifting, unstable sand. For me, the famine came in shape of isolation, emotional abuse, and feelings of hopelessness. I had definitely hit bottom.
What makes me most sad when I look back at those “lost” years is I never understood why I felt so miserable. Wise in my own eyes, I had no fear of the Lord. Pride shackled me to a prison without windows.
The Successful
The final vignette of the lost in Psalm 107 is that of the successful. Verse 23 reads: “Others went out on the sea in ships; they were merchants on the mighty waters.” The Bible depicts merchants in nuanced ways. From the Bible Hub’s topical encyclopedia, “merchants are depicted in various lights, from industrious and shrewd businesspeople to symbols of greed and moral decay.” Today too, businessmen and women play integral parts in society’s prosperity but can also heap coals upon their heads by exercising deceit and lawlessness to accumulate more and more wealth at any cost.
The successful enjoy a perceived control of their circumstances. Using their gifts of intelligence and industry, they work to insulate themselves from discomfort and pain. Psalm 107 reminds them (and us) of reality. We cannot control the weather (so to speak).
Verses 24-27 describe a powerful, relentless storm brought on by the mere word of the Lord and the subsequent powerlessness experienced by those otherwise successful men:
“For He spoke and stirred up a tempest that lifted high the waves. They mounted up to the heavens and went down to the depths; in their peril their courage melted away. They reeled and staggered like drunken men; they were at their wits’ end.”
In my essay, Contentment in Limitations, I describe a time I believed that if I just worked hard enough I could create financial stability for my family. It took several severe “storms” brought on by God to teach me that while I might plant the seeds, it is God who causes growth.
Relationships and jobs and entertainment and money aren’t necessarily bad things in themselves. It’s when we pursue any of these things as a means unto themselves that we are left wanting—unfulfilled, unsatisfied, insatiable. In a word, lost. This is true of anything that attempts to dethrone God from His rightful place in our hearts.
The Good News
While this psalm describes four ways in which a sinner can be lost, each vignette teaches only one way to be found.
In each case, after the lost understands his lostness and dire need of help that can only come from a source outside himself, we read:
“Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and He delivered them from their distress.” (Psalm 107: 6, 13, 19, and 28)
Pastor John MacArthur teaches,
“There’s not any works here. This is all about lovingkindness, which is the Old Testament word chesed meaning grace or mercy. This is all about grace.
It doesn’t say they did a few things, they straightened up their life. It says they cried out to the Lord in their trouble.
And that’s where the sinner has to come. He offers nothing. He brings nothing. He has nothing to offer, no works, no achievements, no accomplishments. He just says, “I am dying.”
And he cries to God and God responded with a pardon. “He delivered them out of his distresses, led them by a straight way to go to an inhabited city.”
That is grace, my friend, that is grace.”
It requires humility to cry out to God for help. It requires laying aside any misplaced trust or hope in the things of this world to bring security and peace to our souls. It requires an awareness of our real and present danger. It requires surrender.
Cry out to the Lord in your lostness, your misery, your wreckage, your fear. “A broken and contrite heart, the Lord will not despise.” (Ps 51:17)
“The people in the caravan found the city. The people in prison were set free. The ones who were sick were made whole. The people in the storm were safely led completely out of the storm into a haven. From the restless, miserable, sick, fearful lives headed nowhere with no resources, hopelessly, aimlessly wandering toward death and hell, God came,” MacArthur assures.9
Revelation 7:16-17 promises God’s redeemed: “Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; He will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
Praise God!
And that is just what the psalmist exhorts the saved to do:
“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say this—those he redeemed from the hand of the foe…
Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for men. Let them exalt him in the assembly of the people and praise him in the council of the elders.” (Psalm 107:1-2, 31-32)
Your story is not mine. Neither is my story yours. But though they differ, they are yet the same, for each of us was—or is—lost. And only by the mercy of our compassionate Lord will we ever be found.
“Whoever is wise, let him heed these things and consider the great love of the Lord.”
Psalm 107:43
“…those He redeemed from the hand of the foe, those he gathered from the lands, from east and west, from north and south.” Psalm 107:2-3
“Some wandered in desert wastelands, finding no way to a city where they could settle. They were hungry and thirsty, and their lives ebbed away.” Psalm 107:4-5
“Some sat in darkness and the deepest gloom, prisoners suffering in iron chains, for they had rebelled against the words of God and despised the counsel of the Most High.” Psalm 107:10-11
“Some became fools through their rebellious ways and suffered affliction because of their iniquities.” Psalm 107:17
“Others went out on the sea in ships; they were merchants on the mighty waters. They saw the works of the Lord, his wonderful deeds in the deep. For he spoke and stirred up a tempest that lifted high the waves…in their peril their courage melted away.” Psalm 107:23-26
You can watch or read Pastor Slack’s sermon called “Psalm 107: Four Ways to be Lost and Found” here.
What good news that the answer to all of these conditions of being lost is to turn to God. It’s truly amazing that grace loosens the chains of sin that exist in each example. Although the prison of self-reliance best evokes this image of being bound, even the “happy” experiences of success and fun will yield to bondage if these ventures are not grounded in God.
Similar to your experience, I think I’ve lived all four types of lost during different times in my life. Not only did God pull me closer to himself and truth, so did the church. As you stated, it’s imperative that the church, online and in person, shares its stories- true, lived, and experienced narratives that display God’s power in our lives. We can replace the deep fakes in our lives (like sin that distorts reality) with deep truths.
A beautifully summarized response, Kim! Yes, sometimes I think the types of bondage like “the elder brother” and the “successful” are a different kind of dangerous because their chains aren’t as easily perceived.
I’m so grateful to have finally, truly “plugged into” the church— What a difference it’s made in my life! We don’t have to struggle alone. The Church says Hey, me too.
Thank you God for your amazing grace and gift of the Body!❤️