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This is what the Lord said:
"When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you," says the Lord. "Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then, you will call on me and come pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you," declared the Lord, "and will bring you back from captivity" (Jeremiah 29: 10-14)
Seek Him with all your heart.
At one point, the lost sheep must have recognized he was no longer under the Shepherd's care as he navigated through different terrains, seasons, and circumstances that differed from the ones he experienced in the pasture. Scripture doesn't mention which type of environment the Shepherd found him in, but it emphasized the Shepherd leaving everything to go after the one who decided to leave. Because nothing can ever separate us from our Shepherd's love (Romans 8:38).
Seek Him with all your heart.
The sheep sought a different path like we also tend to do. We pull from different worldly beliefs, lead with our curiosity to find something better than that which he promised us. We carve out time meant for rest and attempt to create our own path and we glorify the works of our hands, the strayed path we've forged, and disregard the promise that all will be added onto us when we just seek the Kingdom (Matthew 6:33).
Seek Him with all your heart.
God does not force us to follow Him at all. Since Adam and Eve's residency in the garden, we are all created to choose between a life of temporary or everlasting freedom. For a lost sheep to be found, it must first recognize it has strayed. Every journey has its own beginning. In the beginning, the sheep was in the same community with the other ninety-nine sheep. A place of familiarity, comfort, guidance, and covering. But then, he left. He must've chosen to seek something else, more than what was in the pasture, something different from the path established under the care of the Good Shepherd. Yet, somewhere along the way, he grew weary, the weight of its decisions, weighting as an iron yoke on his neck.
To be found, the lost sheep decided to seek out the Shepherd with all his heart.
"I sought the Lord, and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to Him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. This poor man called, and the Lord heard him; He saved him out of all his troubles." David's testimony (Psalm 34: 4-6)
The Found Sheep
06.16.22