“The eyes of the LORD are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good.” Proverbs 15:3
Sometimes the obvious isn’t so obvious. The other Sunday I was sitting in church. It was clearly Operation Christmas Child time. For those who don’t know, that is a ministry sponsored by Samaritan’s Purse. They encourage people to fill shoe boxes with toys and practical things that might be a blessing to some child in the world were life is a lot harder. That morning the front wall of the sanctuary was lined with red and green boxes while two small pillars of balloons framed it all. As the song says, “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.”
As I was looking at all the boxes neatly stacked on the stage, it caught my eye that it was an unusual pattern but that was all I saw. Judy and I even chatted how nice everything looked and began talking about our plans to be a part of this great missions opportunity. Now fast forward to Tuesday night. There happened to be another meeting that was going to be held at our church. It was technically a women’s meeting but guys were invited to tag along so…I did. One of the ladies was up on the stage and she was explaining about Operation Christmas Child. Then she said that there was a secret word spelled out in the boxes. Well, I sure hadn’t seen one so I took another look and then I saw it.
You see, the red and green boxes were arranged so that the green boxes formed a frame of sorts and the red boxes formed letters and those letters spelled out Jesus! Muttering to myself (so no one could hear) I asked myself how in the world did I miss what the words spelled out. How in the world did I miss Jesus. And what is funny when I went back to church today I could not help but see that name above all names. What I didn’t see before was so very obvious now. How about that.
All of this and that made me wonder something. How often do we miss Jesus? How often do we go to church and sing the words to the songs and miss the one we are singing about? How often does the preacher preach and we miss the One he is preaching about? How many Sundays do we go to Bible class and listen and even discuss the lesson but not really get it? Well unfortunately I am afraid it is too, too often. And this doesn’t just happen at church. You see God is evident everywhere. You can see Him in every sunset and sunrise. He is there on every mountain peak and every valley and meadow. Those beautiful fall trees? His handprint is on each one.
So starting today, why not look more carefully. Trust me, the secret word in those boxes is everywhere. All creation and every worship service proclaim JESUS. If you find yourself struggling to hear His voice or see His name or His handwork just ask, just whisper and He will whisper back, I’m here and I’ve got this. Bro. Dewayne
