March 2016

One of our normal routines in the morning is for the girls to come downstairs, look at the weather on Michelle’s phone and then go back upstairs and change into their clothes for the day.  The other morning, the girls couldn’t find Michelle’s phone.  Kaitlyn came into our bedroom and asked if I knew where it was.   I told her I didn’t, but I could show her the weather on mine (which I did).  After Kaitlyn went and told  Madison about the weather, Michelle asked me to call her phone so the girls could find it, which I did.  It was over next to the loveseat charging.  Madison goes over and picks it up and answers and says hello (she knew it was me, because she is looking at me).  I said hello back and then hung up.  Right after I hung up, Madison jokingly yells out “I found it.” 

The “I found it” was pretty funny and it started to make me think about how I “find” truths from, life in , understanding about, a deeper connection with my Lord.  So how do I “find?  We know the scripture where we are told “ask and it will be given you, seek and we will find, knock and the door will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7).  We know the parable about the pearl of great price and how the man went searching for the pearl.  We are told to “seek the Lord while he may be found” (Isaiah 55:6). 

But there is a tension, because when I think about the life of Christ I see Him seeking.  He calls the disciples, He stops under the tree where Zacchaeus was, He “had to go through Samaria” when Jesus meets the woman at the well.  He didn’t have to go through Samaria to go where He was going, plenty of good Jews went around it, but maybe He had to go through Samaria to meet who He was meeting?  In fact, the life of Christ itself is God sending to us.  It is God’s action. 

We are told in 1 John that “we love because God first loved us” (1 John 4:19).  God is always the first to act.  His desire is that we may know Him, find life in Him, look to Him and listen to Him.  All of these lead to bringing Christ the Glory that is due Him. 

Madison “found” the phone because I called it, but I called it because Michelle told me to.  What are we doing so that others may “find” the one who has been longing for them?  What do we say that helps people understand there is something more, someone more and that someone loves and desires us.  Not because He needs us, but because He knows we need Him.  Do we long to hear someone say “found it.”  Do we pray for those we know will say “found it.”  Do we see the call of our lives to help the rest of creation say “found it.” 
Let me end with reminding you what Paul said to those in Athens "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.  And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.  God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.  'For in him we live and move and have our being.’” Acts 17:24-28

Because of Him,
Lynn