Devoted Blog

Wave Conference Blog – Day 21

July 21, 2018

The Last Place We Look

Blog by Derek Holser

My grandmother, and likely yours as well, used to say, “You’ll find the missing thing in the last place you look.”

I often thought, and perhaps you did as well; Of course it’s in the last place I look because after I find it I’m not going to look for it anymore.

I never said my thoughts aloud as I didn’t want to get grounded for disrespect. The truth is, my immature mind didn’t yet comprehend that this trite expression had a deeper meaning. My grandma wasn’t telling me a fact of natural events, she was motivating me to keep searching until I found what was missing.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to realize that quite often the difference between finding what I’m missing or losing it altogether is simply in my persistence. Am I willing to keep looking when the search becomes inconvenient or uneasy? Does the value of the lost object determine the desperation of my search more than it should? Does the value of the lost thing lessen the longer I search without finding?

As we prepare for Wave Conference, I’m reminded that God’s House and God’s people can sometimes be the last place we look for what’s missing from our lives. An old Christian poet and songwriter, Rich Mullins, once wrote, “I’d rather fight you for things I don’t really want than take what You give that I need.”

His point is we so often try to satisfy the hunger that can only be satiated by God with substitutes. Possessions, addictions, relationships. All are fleeting, all are unfulfilling, because all are temporary.

Psalm 63:1 (NIV) reads, “You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.”

What is missing in your life? What have you stopped looking for that you used to love? That still loves you?

Jeremiah 29:13 (NIV) tells us, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

Jeremiah is not writing that God wants to play a cosmic game of lost and found. He doesn’t. But He is interested in a heart that is undivided in its attention. When we are passionately pursuing the missing piece, we don’t stop until it’s found. It’s the same with God. He desires the same focused pursuit by His children.

And who knows? I think maybe He’ll be in the last place we look, which is sometimes right at home, in His house, where we should have been all along.

Can I encourage you to join us at Wave Conference 2018? This year, like every year, will be filled with fellow believers, pastors, and leaders sharing God’s presence and searching for the missing touch to carry them through to 2019.

I pray you will. I believe He’s waiting to be found. Come search with me for more of God at Wave Conference 2018!

REGISTER HERE

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