Open Your Eyes | Chris Hodges

you've ever lost something of value to you like have you ever lost that have you ever like lost your phone or like when you when you lose something you don't do an inventory of your found things while looking for your phone you think well there's my couch at least i have a couch no you don't you don't even really care about it actually at that moment i actually lost one of my five kids once um thank you very much it is funny now it wasn't funny on that day um so i have a daughter and four sons and my youngest son is on the autism spectrum pretty high functioning his name his name is joseph um he does pretty well he the only problem is he really seizes up in in in um in in in a stressful type situations in fact he won't even go to our student conference because he calls it auditory armageddon dad i'm not going that's auditory armageddon like so he just can't help it's just too much too much stimulus he just can't handle it and so he does pretty well for a while until the pressure's on we were uh vacationing uh in colorado and three about three of my kids were born in colorado and we decided to go take them back to colorado on holiday saved up for just now we're gonna teach all you guys how to how to ski and really excited about it and um and we skied for three days had a wonderful time on the last day we decided that we're just going to walk the village now we're traveling with two other families there's about 20 something of us and we decided we're just going to walk the village go through the shops that'll be our final day on this holiday we start off in a coffee shop and we're just all getting coffees 20 something of us about the time the last person got their coffee joseph unbeknownst to anyone he didn't announce it decides to go over to the toilet he wanted to use the restroom right and so we don't know he's in there so when the last person got their coffee we all leave the coffee shop we walked down the street and go into an ice cream store we were gonna eat our way down the street come on somebody right and and uh so we're now all of us in another store joseph comes out out of the bathroom doesn't see anybody goes the opposite direction and this wasn't a particularly safe place we were in actually in fact just that month a 14 year old girl named heather was kidnapped from that village they found her remains that she had been used in a sacrifice in the mountains in fact they identified her only through her dental remains they just they were they knew it was her by her teeth that was only thing left from her when he's missing austin i realized hey guys where's joseph where's joseph they go i don't know and my mind goes straight to this story and and to say i freak out is an understatement i mean i when i say i freaked out i freaked out freaked out i said guys we got to find him now because he can't handle he can't he wouldn't have been able to even tell who he knows or he just doesn't he can't do that like we had pre-planned it 20 people went go in 20 different directions i i find a security guard um leaning up against the building he's got a radio and a gun he's just sitting there full arms folded and i'm frantic sir sir sir you got to help me find my son joseph he's got he's about 13 years old he's got reddish blonde hair he's autistic he got to help yep and the guy never unfolded his arms and he says well did you look the last place you saw him can i confess my sins that conference everybody i'm gonna take you out right now man help me out help you have abilities that you're not helping me with and i was irritated by his inactivity because something of value was missing to me now this didn't happen at all but can you imagine during the search for joseph my kid's coming up to me hey daddy daddy hey daddy what are we doing for dinner tonight now like that's a great question if joseph's not missing it's a horrible question with joseph missing like can you imagine sometimes what our prayers might sound like to god hey daddy hey daddy really you want to talk about that now and um because it's just not a great question with the people that are so far from god when he's counting on his church to be on his search committee i'm just telling you is it okay are you all okay i'm very passionate about this in fact i'm so passionate about it i tell pastors i tell this story at our membership class at church of the highlands so when you when when people decide to join our church i i um i say hey look we're we're going to do anything short of sin to reach as many lost people as we can and we're going to do everything we can to meet your needs and to be good pastors for you and build a great church for you but that's not primary and if you want that to be primary if you want all the attention on you you've probably ought to go ahead and find another church now because we're gonna we're gonna make the main thing the main thing and that is we're gonna seek and to save those are lost just like jesus said are you listening to me so um there was never a moment while we were looking for joseph that i thought i got four others 80 ain't bad you know i never thought that you know in fact they didn't really care about them you know the story i saw joseph um i'm the one who found him he was he was his little fair-skinned face was blush red from crying so hard and he was just looking back and forth just kind of walking pretty fast just frantically trying to find someone he recognized and i saw him crossing this little stone bridge over a creek in this little snow village and i yelled joseph and he just he looked and he ran as fast as he could toward me and we embraced dad i've been looking for you everywhere it's the son i've been looking for you too pastor john i became a different kind of a pastor that day it changed the way i lead a church it changed the way i lived my own life it just made me clear to know the heart of god is for his kids that are missing and i just know if god had the chance to talk to his church he would say would you please would you please go into all the world and touch as many lives as you can and if you will lo i will be with you always even to the [Applause] [Music] end you

Channel: Daystar

Views: 723

Keywords: Daystar, Marcus Lamb, Joni Lamb, Daystar TV, Daystar Television, Daystar Television Network, ChrisHodges, OpenYourEyes, LostChild, Salvation

Id: b7s_oqyvCYk

Length: 6min 23sec (383 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 25 2020