Serving at New York City Relief is bigger than me. It’s bigger than you. It’s bigger than New York City, New Jersey, and the United States of America. It’s one of the many ways of how God pursues the lost. Every time we have the privilege of walking the streets in search of lonely people who desperately matter to God, we are participating in a cosmic search party that started when humans first started running.
The narrative of scripture is consistent: God loves his children. God’s children run and hide. God pursues the one that got away.
“This is my story.
This is my song.
Praising my Savior, all the day long.”
In Genesis Adam and Eve betrayed their very nature, by trying to become like God in a way that they were never meant to be “like God.” They ran. They hid. God pursued. He’s been pursuing ever since.
God set apart a people that would be a blessing “to all nations.” The story of Israel, from Abraham, to Moses, to David, to Isaiah, is the same: God loves his children. God’s children run and hide. God pursues His children.
“This is my story.
This is my song.
Praising my Savior, all the day long.”
Then God doubled-down in his pursuit. For thousands of years He was sending messengers: prophets, judges, and kings, as ambassadors and spokespeople to track down his wayward kids. But then the story changes: God himself walks the streets in the person of Jesus.
Jesus touches people and makes them well. He speaks life into dead bodies. He speaks hope into hopeless hearts. God is so desperate to find his children, all His children, that he will stop at nothing to find the one that got away.
“This is my story.
This is my song.
Praising my Savior, all the day long.”
But Jesus is interested in finding more than one lost generation. The story goes that He died to find the lost children that were hiding where no one could ever go looking for them. This cosmic search party is not limited to the dimensions of time and space.
Jesus came back from the dead, bringing with him a multitude of those who would be found.
“This is my story.
This is my song.
Praising my Savior, all the day long.”
From start to finish the Bible tells the story of a God who refuses to sit back and wait for people to “get it together.”
From beginning to end we see a God who doesn’t assume that we will just “figure it out.”
From the first page to the last page, God sends out messengers of hope, redemption, & restoration to the hopeless, forgotten, & broken, culminating in the person of Jesus literally going to the grave to make sure that no one gets left behind.
So today I have the privilege of serving with New York City Relief. But it’s bigger than me. It’s bigger than you. It’s bigger than New York City, New Jersey, and even the United States of America. God is still out there tipping over furniture, ducking into subway stations, waving down complete strangers, all in the hope of finding the one that got away.
Grace and Peace,
Josiah Haken
