“A Life-long Search Fulfilled”

Tuesday, May 28, 2019

Last Monday's Courier Journal (Louisville's local paper) included a story (you can click here to find it in the Indianapolis Star) about a woman in her 50's, named Kim, who had been adopted to the U.S. as a toddler from a South Korean orphanage. You really should click the link and read the story, because it's a great one. But here's the short version:

When she was 5, little Kim got separated from her family in a crowded Seoul marketplace. With no birth certificate and no way to reconnect with her parents, the police assumed she was an orphan (there were many of those during that time; it was the Korean War era) and sent her to an orphanage. A family from Ohio adopted her, and she lived in the States her whole life since then. But then, in 2018, she took a trip to South Korea and a DNA test reconnected her with her birth parents—now in their 80's—who had continued to look for her all those years, never giving up hope that they would be reunited.

The story is touching, and for Christians, it has some really wonderful parallels to the hope that we have in an eternal Father God who never stops looking for his lost children.

The story adds a small ripple to Jesus' story about a lost son who was found. That son wandered away deliberately, and yet his father apparently never gave up hope that he would return. But in the story from South Korea, a child found herself separated from her parents by accident—through innocent ignorance, wandering away from them because she knew no better. And I think there must be a parallel in that to God's story as well: that there are those who are away from him and know no better (notice how many times the apostles talk about the "ignorance" of unbelievers). But God does not give up hope for them (cf. 2 Peter 3:9). And that reminds us of two things:

1) That would should be grateful that we serve a good God who doesn't give up, who continues to invite his wayward children to himself, and who is always willing to grant repentance and forgiveness through the power of Jesus Christ. He is a truly good God.

2) That we should continue to teach lost people about Jesus. They need him. They need to be reconciled to their father. Many are like the lady in the story: they know little-to-nothing about the Father they are looking for, but their hearts have a void that longs to be filled with knowing Him. Let's do our part to bring God's lost children back to their Father who has never given up on them, no matter how long they've been lost.

- Dan Lankford, minister

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