Seek Your Servant

            I have gone astray like a lost sheep; Seek Your servant, For I do not forget Your commandments (Ps 119:176).

A lost sheep who prays to the Lord to seek him; who calls himself the Lord’s servant; who does not forget God’s commandments. This is certainly not your typical lost sheep. Don’t we apply the label “lost sheep” only on someone who has no more desire for God and has given up on being a believer?

Psalm 119 is a psalm that extols God’s law. It’s apparent from reading the whole psalm that the psalmist views God’s law as his very own life. He seeks, delights in, meditates on, loves, and clings to God’s law. Could a believer be any closer to God than him? Yet this psalmist, who has dedicated his whole heart to God, has gone astray like a lost sheep.

Haven’t we all been lost sheep at one point or another?

Lost. At some crossroads in life. In the pressures to conform. In the fear that His grace might no longer be sufficient.

It is not that we have forgotten God’s commandments. In fact, we have tried with the utmost effort to stay true to God’s word. However, in our weakness, our souls go astray like a lost sheep. We cannot see our Shepherd nor hear His voice. Everything we have come to learn and know about God has become but a mere concept, and we are not able to find comfort and strength in His words.

The psalmist realizes that knowledge of God’s commandments and his own striving are not enough to carry him through. He calls upon the LORD to seek him on the basis that he has not forgotten His commandments (vs. 176). Just as he has not forgotten God, he asks God to not forget him.

When we have gone astray in the ups and downs of life, and we cannot find our way back to God despite all our effort to remain true to Him, it is time to pray to our Shepherd. He will seek us, find us, and bring us back because we are His.

           

 

            Reflection:

Recall a time when you have gone astray and the Lord sought you.