I am back!!!! And me being me I decided that I am going to expand my writing and share whatever comes to me. I will also try my best to post something positive and thought provoking at least once a week along with my other stuff. That being said, sit back, open your minds and enjoy.
Have You Checked Under the Rug
Luke 15:8-9 reads “Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls her friends and neighbors together, saying, “Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece which I lost!”
Touch the person next to you and say “Rejoice with me for I have found the “piece” which I lost!!
One thing that I have learned in my short time on this Earth is that we as people generally don’t appreciate things until we lose them. You never truly appreciate Momma’s cooking until you move out and you don’t have it readily available to you every day anymore. Watch a woman tear her bedroom apart looking for a pair of earrings that she hasn’t worn or thought about in over three years. A lot of things are generally not important to us until they are lost to us.
A couple of years ago my license expired and I had to get it renewed. Now, due to 9/11, I needed my SSN card and birth certificate. I destroyed my house looking for my birth certificate. Every room; every closet; every drawer; every nook and cranny was searched until I found what I thought was lost to me. Sometimes the smallest things can seem so insignificant to until we truly realize that we are in desperate need of them.
As we look at the text, we find that a woman has been identified as being in possession of 10 pieces of sliver. Being that this was a parable used by Jesus to teach, we can interpret this several ways.
First, we can look at this in a monetary manner. The silver coin mentioned would have been a drachma---a silver coin used by the Greeks and then adopted by the Romans. A drachma weighed about an eighth of an ounce and was pure silver in Christ’s time. It was about a day’s wages for a laborer at that time and would have caused a diligent and exhaustive search in hopes of recovering the lost.
Imagine losing 50 dollars right now. Ladies you would dump everything out of your Dooney’s, Louis’, Gucci’s and Birken bags searching for that money to prove that you weren’t crazy! No one has that kind of money right now to just misplace or lose so we can all relate to her plight.
Secondly, we can look at the sentimental value of this lost coin. Historians have shown that married women of that time wore a headdress of silver coins bound together by a silver chain. It was roughly equivalent to a wedding ring in modern times. This object showed that she was spoken for so losing one of the coins would have been devastating to this woman and would have warranted a great search.
The next part of that verse discusses lighting a lamp, sweeping the house and searching carefully until she finds it. The houses then had floors that were typically beaten earth covered with dried reeds and rushes so any lost coin would require an organized and determined search, probably involving a lot of sweeping and sifting by candlelight. Is there anyone in here searching for something that they have lost today, not realizing that all you need to do is start sweeping some of the dirt in your life away? It is late in the midnight hour, God is providing the light for you and all He needs for you to do is grab your broom and start sweeping away some of the of the dirt that is surrounding you out of the way in order to find what it is…that you…have lost!
In Matthew 10:14, Jesus told his disciples “And whoever will not receive you nor your words, when you depart from that house or city; shake off the dust from your feet. In other words, before you continue on your journey, I need for you to shake off the bitterness, the anger and the resentment of your rejection. Shake off everything that had to do with that your pride being lost. Shake off everything that had to do with the hurt feelings that you had. Shake off everything that caused your connection to Me to be lost! Just like that dirt would have hindered them in their journey and their works, the dirt that is surrounding you is preventing your from finding that which you have lost!
Now, let me make it a little plainer for you. A lot of us have lost a coin or two in our lives and we have just been content with what we have managed to keep a hold of. I see a lot of women in marriages and relationships that have the houses, have the cars, have the stability, they have the comfort, they have the security, they have the career, they have the family, they have the relationship with God, they have the public persona, but they have lost their joy….You have lost your headdress and it’s because you refuse to clean up the dirt surrounding you. You refuse to sweep away bitterness. You refuse to clean up resentment. You refuse to tidy up the past pain and hurt and THAT is hiding your lost coin. Your lost joy; your lost happiness; your lost smile.
My brothers, it seems as though we have everything going on for us. We have the job, the cars, the money, the woman, the status, the family, the respect, the swag, the fancy suits, but yet we seemed to have lost one of our most important coins; our self-esteem. Our true manly confidence has been lost and where we make the mistake is that we are looking for others to help us clean up the dirt of our past pain and letdowns! We as men have gotten so lazy when it comes to searching for the things that we have lost in our own dirt so we try to take shortcuts by hiring a Molly Maid to help us find what we have lost and all she is doing is sweeping our dirt up under a rug and adding even more filth to the pile without even finding what it is that we lost in the first place! Is there anyone in here tonight that is ready to grab their broom and sweep up the dirt that is hiding your lost coin? Are you ready to find your lost joy? Are you ready to sweep out the dirt and find your lost confidence and self-esteem? Are you finally ready to clean up your mess and claim everything that you have been missing in your life?
The miracle in the message is found in verse 9. It says that when she has found it, she calls her friends and neighbors together, saying “Rejoice with me for I have found the piece which I was missing.” There is something to be said about finding missing peace. I can get over losing material things in my life because they can be easily replaced, but when peace is missing from your life, there is NO substitute. When missing peace is found, there is cause for a celebration. There is cause to dance in the streets as David did. Most of us will call friends and neighbors when we have found a good deal on gas or when we have hit the numbers. We will call everyone when we have found out some juicy gossip, but is there anyone ready to make that call and tell everyone that you have found your missing peace tonight? If you are ready to celebrate, I dare you to shout right now and tell someone that your peace has been found! Tell them that the joy that you have been searching for has been found.
Take note that the woman didn’t call her family and friends until AFTER she had found what she had lost. She didn’t want to invite anyone into her house where there was a possibility of them seeing her dirt.
Take note in the WAY that she found what she had lost. I can imagine that she first had to grab a broom and sweep away some of the dirt that was surrounding her. The thing that happens though is that after you have swept up the dirt, you have to sift through it to make sure that the coin you lost is not mixed in with it. It wasn’t until the woman finally assumed the appropriate position….
Imagine that you have lost a small coin on a dirty floor, you have swept the dirt around, but it’s not until we get down on our knees to search for it in a place that requires us to get prostrate on the floor do we find what we have lost.
