Don't Panic!

PANIC!

Returning to our car, I felt in my pocket for the car keys – only to discover that they weren't there. They must have fallen out.

Foolishly, I was wearing my jogging bottoms with their shallow pockets for that afternoon's Pilates class – yet another reason for me hating Pilates. And it wasn't just my car keys but our house key as well.

To make matters worse, I was with Jacqui – which meant we couldn't move quickly, nor could I leave her somewhere safe while I searched. And there was no way we could return home unaided to collect my spare set.

At this point, our imaginations go wild. Our Honda has a remote vehicle locator, so anyone finding the keys wouldn't have much difficulty identifying our car – and driving it off. Hopefully our home address wasn't anywhere in the car, but I couldn't be sure.

So we began our walk back into Ormskirk town centre.

I have to confess that my prayers were neither ordered nor in any way theological. I recalled John Wimber's favourite prayer, a constant repetition of "Oh God, Oh God, Oh God!"

And, of course, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. You will remember how Douglas Adams describes the book's cover, with its "big, friendly letters" spelling out DON'T PANIC – surely the most important advice for anyone travelling through the galaxy.

We've all been there – and it's not nice.

And it's an experience which Jesus picks up in the three parables Luke brings together for us – the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son.

Take the lost coin. A woman loses one of her ten silver coins. Her loss may be more than financial; it's possible that these coins formed part of her wedding headdress and therefore had enormous sentimental value.

But it's there somewhere – surely just a matter of finding it.

However, there's no sign of panic here. Just a careful, organised search. I recall Jacqui once losing the diamond from her engagement ring – and we eventually found it in the Hoover dustbag!

Then the lost sheep. Here there is a definite time constraint, with a vulnerable animal lost in the wilderness. Like me, the shepherd may well be imagining the worst. So he moves quickly, with a real sense of urgency.

Then the much longer parable of the lost son, focusing on the extraordinary joy of the father who, against all social convention, runs to meet his returning offspring.

And what do all these parables have in common? Each ends in celebration.

So the shepherd, on finding his sheep: "And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbours, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.'" (Luke 15:6).

Again, we've all been there. That wonderful sense of relief when whatever we've lost is finally found, perhaps turning up in the most unexpected place.

Those parables are all very well – but where are my car keys?

My mind races. Even the best-case scenario would probably mean spending several hundred pounds on replacement keys with their expensive electronic sensors. Not to mention the hours spent arranging everything and waiting at the garage.

And another question: is God actually bothered?

After all, with everything happening in the world, my lost car keys must come pretty near the bottom of his list of priorities.

Perhaps this was yet another test of my character – and I was scoring rather low marks in my failure to remain composed and focused.

But then I realised!

Was God reminding me of something?

Of course! I had attached an Apple AirTag, a small tracking device, to my keys.

And yes, when I opened the Find My app on my iPhone, there they were – located in the phone shop I had visited earlier to buy a new charger.

They were still 400 metres away – but wonderfully, they weren't moving. Nobody was walking off with them.

And when I entered the shop, the owner, recognising me, held up my keys with a smile.

What a relief!

For the record, I didn't then host a party, although I could have crossed over to Costa and announced to everyone, "The muffins are on me!"

But that is the point of Jesus' three parables.

God is not indifferent to what is lost. Far from it. He searches, he waits, he welcomes – and above all, he rejoices.

We live in a world where individuals can so easily be overlooked, where one person among eight billion hardly seems to matter. Yet Jesus tells us that each one of us is of immense value to God.  His cross makes this wonderfully real. 

The shepherd still has ninety-nine sheep, the woman nine silver coins, and the father another son at home. But none of them is content simply to write off what has been lost.

And there is a wonderful reversal here.

We spend so much of our lives imagining that we are searching for God. Yet Jesus tells us that God is searching for us.

So perhaps I should have bought those muffins after all.

Not to celebrate finding my car keys, but to celebrate being found by the Good Shepherd.