I took a carload of girls to the beach today. One of them lost their goggles. There one minute and gone the next. We combed the shallows for some time and found only shells and fish. I sat in the water afterward looking out to the deep and musing. There is so much loss in this world. It invades like a careless thief. In the aftermath of its assaults, we sit on our backsides feeling the loss of time, youth, health, opportunities, and people. It all feels washed out to sea, never to be seen again.
Then the salty breeze blew a sweet whisper from the deep: “The world loses many things, but nothing is lost in My Kingdom. I don’t lose anything. What looks lost has merely been planted.” That swept over me like a wave, and I had to ride it for a minute. Planted not lost. What a paradigm shift. Not just a shift in seeing, but that one thought could bring a shift in living. My efforts and all the things I’ve spent have been planted and will reap a harvest. Even the things we have mismanaged, abused, or neglected can be replanted when placed in the Father’s hands. Even the loss that came by the hands of others…their mismanagement, abuse, and neglect…is returned seven-fold when given to the Father. That means I’ve lost nothing. Everything has been invested for later.
How often have I held on to something afraid to lose the beauty of it, the pure goodness of it, or the newness of it? As if God has no more beautiful, good, or new things to give. As if He is static and measurable and I’ve seen all of Him there is to see. In my holding on, I’ve forgotten that He has more. Always has more. That He can surprise me anew every day. That a thousand lifetimes could not contain all He has to give…all there is to see of Him. What a shift in living this could bring. If I could just get ahold of it, bury it deep in my heart, and keep it ever on my mind.
Nothing is lost. In that economy, youth isn’t lost but planted to reap a better harvest in later years…transformed into something even more fulfilling. A childhood isn’t lost in time, it is planted to be reaped in other seasons. A voice isn’t lost, just replanted for a greater purpose. God restores everything we’ve lost (Deuteronomy 30:3 MSG). Everything God plants comes back better. It multiplies. That thought has lingered like the sun that kissed my skin this afternoon. I can’t get it off my mind and I don’t want to. I want to swim in it, to live in it. God doesn’t lose anything!