Search Effort

March 29

"He reveals the deep things of darkness and brings utter darkness into the light," Job 12:22.

As of this writing, there is a massive search going on for a Malaysian jet liner that has been missing for over a week. Speculation is rampant regarding the where-abouts of the missing airship.

One of the more incredible aspects of the jet’s disappearance is that audio communication with the giant passenger plane went silent just before it disappeared. That silence has perhaps fueled more speculation than any other single thing.

Why wasn’t a ‘may-day’ alert called?

Why didn’t the pilot or co-pilot sound an alarm if problems occurred?

Why did the plane have two people aboard who had false passports?

Why did the plane change course and travel for hours before disappearing?



Some of these same questions may be asked of people who consider themselves to be ‘former Christians.’

Why didn’t they beseech their friends and fellow believers when they felt they were losing their way spiritually?

Why didn’t someone close to them sound an alarm regarding their deteriorating spiritual condition?

Why had they begun to associate more closely with unbelievers than with people of faith?

Why did they travel a divergent path before terminating all contact with their former fellow worshipers?

As with the missing plane, a massive search effort is undertaken in order to locate the missing believers and to encourage them to return to the fold, but though there is much expenditure of time and effort to return them to their ‘First Love,’ Jesus, the mission can become an exercise in futility.

Where there is life, there is always hope. We must never stop our outreach and we must never cease our prayers in the behalf of those who have departed the faith; yet we must not allow our preoccupation with returning them to the fold to discourage us from our continued ministry to the lost.

We must ever encourage the unsaved to “taste and see that the Lord is good,” Psalm 34:8, and we must do so because we know that “all things are possible with God,” Matthew 19:26. Both the reclaiming of the disappointed former believer and the shedding of the light of eternal truth upon the unbeliever who walks in darkness are part of the on-going work of believers through the power of the Holy Spirit.