One Sunday, after I finished my service, I walked across the street to the thrift store parking lot to get into my car. I saw a woman dropping donations off in front of the door. Out of courtesy, I waved at her. She signaled for me to come over to where she stood, so I began across the lot. When I reached her, she said that the thrift store door was not locked. Concerned, I pushed on the door, and it opened. I examined the lock and found that there were two loose screws that, when tightened, would solve the problem. I went into the store to find a screwdriver. 

As I was repairing the door, my wife called and told me that she was home. She asked that I come, so that we could have lunch together. I quickly finished my repairs on the door, got into my car, and went home. 

On Monday, I had a home visitation appointment, so I opened my bag to retrieve my small Bible. It’s a little Bible in which I have highlighted and made many notes over the years. It is the story of my relationship with the Holy Spirit and His inspiration in my life for the 11 years that I have been carrying the Bible. I was surprised to find that was not there. I then remembered that when I went into the thrift store to repair the door, I set my Bible on a box. 

The thrift store is not a good place to leave personal possessions, as donations will pile up, and employees and volunteers will move things around and organize them to be sold. I hurried across the street to the thrift store and into the donation room but saw neither my Bible nor the box on which it sat when I last saw it, and no one that I asked had seen it. I asked the manager to look for it; it might not be valuable to anyone else, but it means a lot to me. 

I went to my visitation appointment and arrived back at the store after closing. I entered the building with my key and immediately spotted a box of donated books. I searched through the pile, picking up and examining every book, but my Bible wasn’t there. I looked at every shelf of books with no luck. I moved donated items around and looked everywhere, but I couldn’t find it. It was getting late, so I went home, disappointed. My wife was also unhappy about the loss of the Bible because she knew how much it meant to me. 

The next day, she wanted to go to the thrift store and look for it. I told her that I had searched everywhere, but she insisted. She thought that the employees might have taken the tattered Bible to the trash. I asked a volunteer if he would help me look through the trash to find it. He agreed and climbed into the dumpster to look. I peered into the dumpster and saw many battered Barbie dolls, broken electronics, and other garbage, but not the Bible. He searched through every bit of trash but one corner. He told me that if it was not in the remaining small pile of trash, it was not in the dumpster. 

He began to dig, and at the bottom of the last pile of trash in the unsearched corner of the last place I could think to look was my beloved Bible. I was so happy! I took it into my hands like a precious treasure. It had been kept safe and clean underneath a flattened cardboard box; it didn’t even smell dirty! My wife walked out of the store and saw my excitement. She rushed over to my side, took the Bible, and hugged it. 

My experience with my lost Bible reminds me of a story in Luke 15:8-10 about a woman searching everywhere for her lost coin. Jesus told this story because God looks for the lost people and, in finding one soul turning to God, there is a great rejoicing in the kingdom. 

The Bible is a book written by God not so that His people might search for Him, but so that He might find His people. If you are looking for God, you may not be able to find Him, but if you realize that you are lost, He will find you. 

There is a saying that if you understand the problem, the problem is half solved.

Do you want to find God?