Looking in all the wrong places. I do it everyday, especially my reading glasses and my tennis shoes. This has caused me to invest in multiple pairs, multiple reading glasses, and multiple work out shoes. If I can’t find one pair I will just go and grab another pair. So, you might ask, what happens if you misplace both pair? Yeah, been there and done that one too. This has caused my husband to ask the most obvious question, “Why don’t you just put everything up in its proper place?” With that question asked, I hear my mother’s voice ringing in my memory of the exact same question she asked me when I was a little girl and was searching for my shoes. I know, Kevin and I aren’t your conventional type couple. Usually, it is the wife constantly on her husband to put away his shoes. But alas, poor Kevin, I am afraid I must confess that it is he who married the slob and not the other way around. His house shoes are always located right outside our bathroom door. Day after day he properly remembers where each pair of reading glasses are. He has a pair in my purse, in a silver bowl in the kitchen, the nightstand beside his bed, in his office drawer, beside his lazy boy chair, and on the table in the theater room, and he is very intentional not to remove each reading pair from its proper place. This morning I couldn’t find my reading glasses and went without. It took me a whole hour longer to finish my reading. I looked everywhere, but I chose not to turn on the light. Instead I used my dim phone light to search for them. When the sun finally shone through I found them. I spotted them behind my desk because the light had broke through the darkness. Then I remembered I had knocked them off the desk the day before and didn’t bother to pick them up as I left the room.
This analogy has many spiritual parallels to the story of the wise men who came seeking Jesus. They began their search in the wrong city, because the star that had once shone so brightly had disappeared for a time as they searched amid the darkness of Herod’s palace, but once the star broke through and gave light to their path, they found the Royal Child.
Jeremiah 29:13 says, “But you will seek Me and Me when you search for Me with your whole heart.”
They came 1000’s of miles searching for the King of the Jews. That is definitely searching with their whole heart. They may have begun their search in the wrong city, but just like God promised, when their whole heart was in it they found Jesus.
They made a wrong assumption. The place to look for a king is in a palace. It does sound reasonable, but God’s ways are not our ways. Sometimes He is not found in the obvious places. You just have to keep looking. Be persistent. Search for Him with all your heart, because He is that pearl of great price.
Have your wrong assumptions caused you to miss what Jesus is doing in your life?
Have you allowed life to cause you to stop short of seeking Jesus with your whole heart?