TREASURE HUNT MENTALITY

My Pastor, Shawn Franco did a teaching about the two disciples, who walked on the road to Emmaus with Jesus, without recognizing Him. And I wondered how often is that me and you; having Jesus right there beside us, but somehow we miss Him? It’s not that He’s left us; we’ve merely allowed the enemy to fool us into thinking that we’re alone. But praise God He’s promised to never leave or forsake us! He faithfully walks along the twists and turns of every road that our life takes! But are we sometimes so busy looking for a spectacular event that we miss the untapped treasures that His abiding presence offers, because they were wrapped in the seemingly “ordinary” instead of the “remarkable”?

God has lovingly placed countless treasures along every path that His heart has sent us on, but sometimes we have to be willing to look for them in unexpected places! Jesus told a parable in Matthew 13:44- "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.” Notice that he had to uncover the treasure; it wasn’t lying on the surface. This man had what we sometimes lack: a treasure hunt mentality! Some of our greatest riches lie just beneath the surface; indiscernible to the naked eye, but surely within our reach if we’re willing to dig!

Think about it: he was just an ordinary man, crossing an ordinary field, but he was wise enough to recognize that treasures can be found in the ordinary places that others just pass by. And as we travel this life’s journey, we need to be searching for the riches that lie just below the familiar. Perhaps they are revealed in a gentle breeze or a quiet sunrise, possibly they’ll take the form of a word spoken to or from a stranger, or maybe they’ll be unearthed when we delve into the Scriptures and discover that they testify of Jesus and the transformation that He’ll bring. (John 5:39)

And believe it or not, sometimes we don’t even have to dig to lay hold of valuables, as my friend Bill Chase pointed out. He mentioned that nursing homes are filled with treasures and that’s so right! This society tends to ignore or at least minimize the very old and the very young…but they are each untapped treasures laying in plain sight…just waiting to be gathered for the Kingdom of God! How many times do we miss the riches that Papa scatters along our way because we are too busy doing “great” things for God to notice? It must break the Father’s heart! It’s a little bit like rummaging through a huge pile of glistening diamonds…so you can find the missing penny! We end up casting aside the genuinely priceless to gather to ourselves some shiny but intrinsically worthless bauble! But with a treasure hunt mentality and a connection to the heart of God, we won’t miss the buried treasure or the riches lying right in front of us. Oh that we would ask Him to give us new eyes to see what He sees and new hearts that would beat with the passion that drives His heart…but many times we are too busy chasing after things that hold no eternal value to recognize what is truly precious.

And so often, like these two disciples on the road to Emmaus, we miss the treasure of Jesus because we’re sure that He’ll arrive in a preconceived way. But the truth is, we don’t know exactly how Jesus will come to us; we only know that He will. And if we truly believe that, it should daily inspire a treasure hunt mentality in us-for every untold treasure is found in Him-the only Pearl of great price!

So let us ready our spades and be ever searching for the precious jewels that He’s hidden or laid along our way; even in the mundane places where we least expect to find Him and His unimaginable treasures!