The Lost Ring

Have you ever pushed the pause button on your life for a few minutes and asked yourself a question?

Next time you decide to do this, ask yourself: What am I looking for?

* * * * *

Everyone spends their lives searching for things: money, relationships, meaning. Believe it or not, most people (unlike Bono), at some point in their life, will find what they are looking for. So why is there so much unhappiness in the world?

Because most of us spend the majority of our lives looking for something we don’t actually want.

Financial security. That next promotion. A bigger house. Relationships with people we can control. Retirement.

* * * * *

We had some friends in Florida, when we lived there a million years ago, whose dog ate the husband’s wedding band. They had a messy search on their hands, following the dog around the yard, retrieving its excrement, picking through it. But they were persistent, and the dog eventually passed the ring.

Are you willing to dig through the excrement of life to find that which is most important to you?

* * * * *

The other night a seemingly random question came into my mind: What is the first thing that Jesus said?

It struck me that this thing might be important, and as I happened to be reading the book of John, I opened it and began scanning through. John opens the book with his monologue on The Word, then introduces John the Baptist. Then Jesus comes on the scene. The first thing he says?

“What do you seek?”

What are you seeking? Before you spend your entire life in the pursuit of that particular thing, make sure it’s something worth finding. I’d hate to spend my life picking through dog poop only to find a cat-shaped Silly Band, or the the lego head of Darth Vader.

3 Replies to “The Lost Ring”

  1. Reminds me of a joke. A man accidentally drops a dollar down a port-a-potty. Sadly, he tells the person in line behind him that it’s not worth digging out. The other man goes in, drops a $20, reaches in and grabs both. The first man, puzzled, asks what he did that for. The second man replied “I wouldn’t reach in there for a dollar, but I would for a twenty!”

    Good thoughts & good question

Comments are closed.