Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Searching for Sunglasses and Silver

Good news! I found my new sunglasses!!! I was driving in the car with my mom on the way to Costco yesterday when the sun offensively bolt into my uncovered eyes. Having a bit of deja vu, I remembered a time when i was in the idnentical situation, but was then a proud owner of sunglasses and was able to releive myself by sporting those beautiful, dark frames. It all seemed so recent, but I had earlier convinced myself that that memory was from my thanksgiving visit home and the sunglasses were lost at school. In a half hearted effort, i began to reach my hand into the crevace that formed between the passenger seat and the door. Suddenly, before going down more than a few inches, my fingers felt the textured, oversized case that housed my lost treasure. In great joy mixed with unbelief, I removed my sunglasses from their case. They felt even better than they had when I first received them for my birthday just a month before. When we arrived at costco, I carefully replaced the glasses into their hard covered home, buried in my purse, and made sure i could feel the lump against my side as I walked. I had lost them once, and I wasn't about to do it again.
The joy that these found sunglasses brought me is somewhat shallow, that I'll definately admit. But there is just something about an item that was once lost and is now found. I had searched long and hard for them, described that silly oversized case to countless people, and reached my hands into far too many dusty crevaces. I had even planned out people to call and places to look later that day and it took another glance at the glasses to convince myself that I need not continue on my search. In this sense, my joy springs not from the possession of the glasses, but the completion of a long, hard search.
Proverbs 2 urges us to seek out wisdom, understanding, insight. I've done a lot of seeking in the last week or so and, frankly, I'm exhausted. I still have one very expensive item of mine missing and no map by which to begin my hunt--I'm stumpted. So, as I reapproach this passage, my soul almost instinctually feels wearied and quite hesitant to take up the search. What separates the hunt for wisdom from the hunt for my lost sunglasses? Fortunately, wisdom is not lost. It is not hiding in a large black case in a dark crevace, or floating in the abyss lost airline luggage. Rather, "the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding" (Proverbs 2:6). So while I am called to seek understanding as if seeking silver and to search for it as for hidden treasure, this hunt does not depend on my memory or my wit, but on a gracious and unchanging Father who wants to show me compassion and bless me with all good gifts--including understanding.
And so I will search for wisdom as for silver, not silver lost that needs to be reclaimed, but silver that--though totally undeserved--a merciful Father is anxious to bestow on a surrendered child.

Beauty in a Barn and a Blanket of Snow

Beauty in a Barn and a Blanket of Snow