Drawn With Kindness
Hosea 11:4 · Jeremiah 31:3 (NIV)
Luna is a small white dog, part Jack Russell terrier and part chihuahua. She is 10 years old. Katie Boucher, who led the volunteers who searched for her, said Luna spent her first year as a stray before she was adopted.
On September 10, Luna's owners from California were on vacation in Yellowstone National Park. They left her in their cabin with a "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door. They believe a housekeeping worker opened the door by accident. Luna ran. Boucher said park staff chased her for more than two hours.
Her owners searched on their own. They were told she had likely died, possibly killed by a coyote. After they left the park, they learned someone had spotted her. They reached out to Boucher, president of the Norris Ark Training and Recovery Center in Norris, Montana.
The Associated Press, in a report carried by KSL, reported that for weeks people saw Luna crossing intersections, walking through employee housing, and slipping into lodges through automatic doors. Each time strangers called her name or ran after her, she fled deeper into the park. Marie Jaskula, who runs a general store in the park, put up signs at every entrance. "It's really hard to stress the importance of do not chase," she said.
The volunteers used a different approach. They set a live trap and baited it with scraps of the owners' own T-shirt and pillowcase. On October 14, Boucher and one of Luna's owners found her inside it. "She's underweight, but that's to be expected. She's alert and in good spirits," Boucher said. The news digest 1440 shared the story this morning.
Chasing drove Luna away. A familiar scent drew her in.
Psalm 71 is a prayer from someone in deep trouble. The writer repeats what his enemies are saying about him. "God has forsaken him; pursue him and seize him, for no one will rescue him" (Psalm 71:11). Then he answers them by praying. "Do not be far from me, my God; come quickly, God, to help me" (Psalm 71:12).
Luna's owners had been told she had likely died. The volunteers went on looking.
David, the shepherd who became king of Israel, knew the urge to run. In Psalm 55 he prays about a betrayal by "my companion, my close friend" (Psalm 55:13). Earlier in the same psalm he says, "Oh, that I had the wings of a dove! I would fly away and be at rest" (Psalm 55:6). The Bible lets that honest wish stand in the text.
GOD meets people who run with a different kind of pull. Hosea was a prophet in Israel more than seven hundred years before JESUS. In Hosea 11, GOD speaks of Israel as a child HE loved and raised. The child ran. "But the more they were called, the more they went away from me" (Hosea 11:2). Yet HE remembered how HE had cared for them: "I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love. To them I was like one who lifts a little child to the cheek, and I bent down to feed them" (Hosea 11:4).
Hosea also speaks of the consequences of Israel’s refusal to return. HIS kindness does not make their rebellion harmless. Even there, HIS compassion endures.
Jeremiah, a prophet who lived through the fall of Jerusalem, wrote down the same promise. "I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness" (Jeremiah 31:3). Jeremiah spoke those words to a people scattered far from their own land.
GOD draws. HE uses kindness to do it, and HE bends low to do it.
A bishop named Irenaeus led the church in Lyon, in what is now France, around AD 180. In his work Against Heresies, he answered teachers who pictured a god far away who paid no attention to the world. He compared that god to the god of the Greek philosopher Epicurus, one who "does nothing either for himself or others; that is, he exercises no providence at all" (Against Heresies III.24.2). Irenaeus wanted his readers to see that the GOD of the Bible watches over HIS world.
Psalm 147 shows how closely HE pays attention. "The Lord builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the exiles of Israel. He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name" (Psalm 147:2-4). The GOD who counts the stars also gathers people who have scattered and tends their wounds.
Some of us have run from GOD, and some of us were pushed farther away by people who pressed too hard. Running wears a person thin. GOD is patient with all of it. HE draws with kindness, and HE goes on looking after others have said the search is over.
It does leave me thinking about where patient kindness might do what pressure cannot.
I am not here to prove myself. I am here to make HIM visible.
🙏 To the one who ran and is still running, GOD draws you with unfailing kindness.
🙏 To the one who was told no one is coming, HE is not far from you.
🙏 To the one still searching for someone you love, GOD sees what you cannot see.
🙏 To the one worn thin from running, HE heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.
Grace and Peace.