When I golf, it's really frustrating to lose balls that are just off the fairway. It seems like I ought to be able to find them, because I saw right about where they landed, but they disappeared right in plain sight. Other golf balls, well... I hit them and immediately give up hope of ever finding them. They're very, very lost.
In the parable of the lost sheep, it never says how lost the sheep is. It could've been just off the trail, but I somehow doubt it. I get the impression that this was a sheep that was very lost, perhaps wandering the wrong way on the wrong trail for a long time, far from home.
But it doesn't say how lost the sheep was because it doesn't matter. The good shepherd goes to find it, no matter what.
In the same way, God is teaching us through Jonah that there is no such place that is too far from God, no situation that is too far gone. We can all be redeemed.
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