Lost and Found

June 19, 2018

Only after the fact did I discover they were missing. The others were where I remember leaving them, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember where I had last seen these two, and I knew that without them, everything would come to a screeching halt. So I looked. High and low, everywhere I could imagine them to possibly be, until lo and behold, there they were, a bit dirty and looking a bit worse for wear, but basically intact. 

No, it wasn’t any of my kids, although there have been times the above paragraph could have been written about them. I’m talking about my fork rockers. For the uninitiated, fork rockers aren’t little curved things that you put table forks on to rock them back and forth. They are what connect the two pieces of the springer front end so it can absorb the road shock when riding the antique motorcycle. Without them, there is no way of attaching the axle and therefore, the front wheel and tire. They aren’t very big, but they are very important. The bike can function without some of the bigger parts like the fenders, but without those little rockers, it’s dead in the water, although I imagine that even with them it would be dead if I drove it into the water.

I looked diligently, digging into every box that might contain them, and finally, there they were in all their greasy glory. Finding them saved me a bundle of money and down time. 

It’s a poor comparison, but it’s a story as old as the Bible—lost things that are found; God searching out the misplaced and forgotten, the dirty and forlorn. There was nothing those rockers could do on their own; I had to go looking for them, much the same way Jesus came looking for me when I was helpless and hopeless. I won’t lose those rockers again, and unlike me, they can’t stray on their own. The Bible assures us that those whom Jesus finds, he keeps. We may stray, but his leash is strong and secure. 

Pretty soon, I’ll clean up the rockers and install them on the forks. Then comes the axle and tire. It all gets hooked up to the frame, and pretty soon it will begin to look like a motorcycle again. Soon after that, we’ll have it up and running, fulfilling the purpose for which it was made. And though we may be but a small part in the Church, only once we are all in our proper place can the whole fulfill its purpose of giving praise to the Father who sent his Son to seek and save that which was lost (Luke 19:10).