the voice of God in strange places...

So today, I had spent quite a bit of time stressing about an envelope... you got it, a single envelope.  Inside it had a semi-significant amount of cash as well as some keys to my parent's vacation home.  I started searching realizing that if i were to find what i'm really looking for, it was gonna take some work... emptying out my car... going through the entire house... retracing my steps over the past couple days... and hoping that the envelope hadn't fallen out of the car in a place where i wouldn't be able to find it. 

After about 1 hour, I actually had a cleaned out car, but didn't see what i was looking for.  I had gotten so frustrated i began to pray (i know, this, should have been an earlier decision) while praying, the parable of the lost coin came to mind... "am i really seeking God with the same relentlessness as someone seeks a lost treasure?"  My head hung in shame.  as i realized i spent 60 minutes wholeheartedly pursuing an envelope and maybe 10 focused minutes pursuing Him today...
I still continued my search, driving to different places i had parked throughout the week, and began calling, "have you seen this envelope"?  "do you know what i did with it"? as i spoke with someone who remembered me having it a couple days ago, i began to have a little more peace that it was SOMEWHERE, as she was reflecting on where she last saw it, my phone died. 

I arrived to work, knowing the only possible place i could look was somewhere very familiar to me... my jacket pocket.  "but why would it be in there?!" as i walked to my desk to check my jacket, there was an advertisement on my keyboard for geico.  pictured on it was a little wad of cash with eyes staring right at me... the tag line... "It's right here.  It's easy." I found the source of the ad, and asked if it was a joke, or a clue, the truth is, she was clueless that i was even looking for money.  i stuck my hand in the pocket of my jacket which lay a foot away from the advertisement, and there it was...the very thing i spent time searching out...

the moral of the story?!?!

to pursue whole heatedly the kingdom of God, we will end up cleaning things out... the places where we spend our everyday.  sure, the obscure places need to be cleaned, but the place to start is where we reside.  Remember, "He's right here.  It's easy."  so many times we go running here and there... "oh i saw God there once" or, "Everybody says He's over there" again, He's in the place we spend our everyday.  the reason i didn't check my jacket was because i was so familiar with it as i  told someone, " i would know if it was in there... i would have felt it yesterday." Isn't it true... we need our eyes opened every day to see Him at work, we get so familiar with His blessing & grace that we forget where we came from... we forget that there is need to walk in a higher way...and that what we deserve, well... thats round about nothing good.