Treasure Hunter
Blog by Bobby Harrell
When I was a kid I did something that most kids only get to dream about! That sounds dramatic, I know, but it is true. I grew up in the 80s and 90s which was the time for movies like Indiana Jones and The Goonies and you better believed I watched those movies all of the time. I spent countless hours walking the lake shore by my home in Tennessee just hoping to find treasure. Sometimes I would find incredible things… Old fishing lures, the random $1 bill, old rusted out boats, sticks… you get the point. I would find things. I would find things because I searched for them.
So one fall day my brother, 2 friends and I went to search for treasure, but this wasn’t a typical hunt. On this day we actually found something! Something valuable. Something that upon finding it, we were convinced that we would never have to worry about money again. WE FOUND TREASURE, or at least we thought we did. As you can imagine, we were wrong about the value of the item we had found. It was just a ring… a single ring. As a matter of fact it was a class ring…. A high school class ring. My mom laughed when we showed it to her in excitement thinking we had found treasure, but upon further inspection of the ring she realized it had an inscription of a name on it. It turns out it was my uncle’s class ring! She calls him and lets him know. That ring may have not been that valuable to most people, but it was pretty valuable to him. So much so, that he brought us the largest bag of candy I had ever seen, just to say thanks!
Even though it ended up not being treasure that we found, that moment did something to me as a kid. It convinced me that if I searched for treasure, I may just find it. So with that being said, I have a couple thoughts from my treasure hunting days.
1. Never stop searching! God tells us in Jeremiah 29:13-14a NIV that, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the LORD.” How amazing is that! If we seek after God we can find God. Christianity is more than just saying a prayer one day to secure your spot in heaven. It is a life of searching and seeking out God in all that we do.
2. The best treasures are never on top of the ground. Think about it… if you want to find something good, chances are you are going to have to dig for it! It’s the same with our pursuit of God. If you normally spend 5 minutes praying, try spending 10 minutes this week. If your scripture reading has been reduced to glances at the scripture of the day, then how about this week you read the chapter it’s in. Maybe even glance at the concordance and ask God to speak to you directly about what He is saying to you in his word.
3. Treasure hunting is always more fun with friends! God designed us for community, and when we find ourselves in community we thrive. Hebrews 10:24-25a NIV says, “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together.” When we meet together, pray together, study together and serve together it motivates us to go further and love deeper. With others involved we find things we could never find by ourselves.
Today I pray that we all can have the spirit of a treasure hunter, knowing that when we seek after God we will find Him.