Saturday, October 25, 2014

Seeking and Finding God

Imagine yourself as a pirate looking for buried treasure. Arrg! Now, let's pretend that you were born into a family of pirates and none of them had ever found buried treasure. Is the treasure even out there? Will you be able to find it? As life proceeds you become pretty well convinced that the treasure is near impossible for you to find. Deep down, you believe that you're never gonna find it. But you also know that good pirates at least look for it. So you go out to search for treasure to prove that you're a good pirate.

Do you see what just happened there? When the pirate believes he won't find what he's looking for the 
paradigm on what he's looking for shifts. When the pirate status quo becomes looking for buried treasure, finding the buried treasure is no longer the objective. The ultimate goal (finding treasure) has become secondary to the culture created by it (the culture of looking for buried treasure).


The pirate culture screams, "If you're just looking for it, you're doing great! Arrg!" But if you don't believe you can actually find what you're looking for, are you actually looking for it anymore? Are you actually looking for the treasure? No, at that point you're just trying to be good at your culture. 

When we cease to believe we can find the Treasure, our search for the Treasure has ended, and a new search for self-worth without the Treasure has begun.

But let me encourage you with something:


"7 Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened." [Matthew 7:7-8 ]

Real seekers always find. That's a promise from God.

Sometimes when I'm reading the Bible, it helps to ask myself the question: What If I actually believed that?

What if I believed my search for the Treasure would never end in failure? What if I believed I would always find?

It would change my life! I would ask God more questions. I would read the Bible in anticipation of God talking to me. I wouldn't get discouraged if I didn't understand something. I'd just believe that God was taking me on a finding journey. There's no such thing as "not finding" for me. I'm knocking on God's front door and He always opens up.

Even if it's a spiral journey to the Treasure, its gonna be an awesome, dangerous, fun adventure all the way... Arrg! a pirates dream. God doesn't always work in straight lines and we don't actually need him to. So go ahead and start believing that you're going to find. Every day believe it. You're going to find again today!


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