Thought for day - Wednesday 27 May

Matthew 18:10 The Voice  Make sure that you do not look down on the little ones, on those who are further behind you on the path of righteousness. For I tell you: they are watched over by those most beloved messengers who are always in the company of My Father in heaven. Anyone who knew my son, Alex, 50 years ago knows he was born with a wanderlust. You may remember him ‘losing’ his gran and papa at the seaside. He was also endowed with an ability  to sleep for Britain. Not a good combination! Alex was about 3 when I was hanging out a washing one morning and he was playing in the garden. When I called him there was no answer, he wasn’t in the garden so he must be in the house. He wasn’t so I panicked! Did he climb over the fence to go on an ‘adventure’? I ran to both of his grans’ houses but he wasn’t anywhere to be seen. I just kept repeating ‘please God’ when I had no breath left to say it I was thinking it. When I got back to the house I couldn’t sit down. I was looking around again when I heard a noise behind the couch, there was the case I had just emptied. When I lifted the lid, Alex shouted ‘boo’. He had hidden to give me a fright but had fallen asleep. It was the worst 2 hours of my life. Benny must have broken records getting home from work. This memory made me think of how God is always searching for His lost sheep. In this age the young seem to have lost their way and don’t always get the help they need from us, but God is seeking them and He will find them! God will lead them back to Himself. This is another reason why we should never lose the inclination to pray about everything. A lot of times young people are forgotten about in our prayers. Even some pre-teens are thought of as ‘a bad lot’ when most of them, if given a chance will turn out to be responsible citizens. Sometimes it just needs for us to believe they are worthy of our prayers, after all Jesus thought they were worth dying for. I don’t apologise for keeping on about prayer because I think praying for others is just as important as loving them. Prayer Father help us never to give up on the young people, who are struggling to find their way at a time when there are so many distractions and peer pressure vying for their attention. They cannot understand how the things they enjoy so much can be harmful, so we earnestly pray that You will change this enjoyment into boredom or distaste, to direct their minds to more wholesome  thinking. Amen.