Discovering something more.
I am drowning in mystery. Literally swimming in the unknown. So why do I feel like such an expert on everything around me? You'd think that living so closely to so many people and places and things so filled with their own unknowns would lead to a deeper desire to know more, to find out things I didn't know, to discover "something" more.
Sadly I'm often content with just seeing what I've always seen and expected was there instead of stepping back and becoming a stranger to everything I think I know so well. This is not just an issue of missing the forest for the trees; that's putting it mildly. It's more like thinking I've seen the full breadth and depth of the ocean simply because I went wading in the surf. If only I would take a moment to realize that there is so much more there than I ever realized or recognized. So often I am like an explorer discovering an undiscovered land and coming back with nothing to report because I didn't recognize the astounding significance of what I found there.
The truth is you and I are completely surrounded at any given moment by a thousand things that desperately need discovering. Not for curiosity sake but for our own revelation. Discovery doesn't just lead to new information. It also most assuredly leads to transformation. It's just that I'm so preoccupied with having the T-shirt that shows I've already been there and done that, that I'm completely out of touch with just how much I've missed. It's the height of arrogance or at least severe delusion because the truth is, if I really had been there and done that, it would have really changed me in fathomless ways, and I'd have a whole lot more to show for the encounter than just a t-shirt. I would have a different me to bring to show and tell along with what I'd discovered.
The real problem with my presumption and lack of zeal for discovery is that who I could be, who I really could become, is also hidden there..... waiting to be found.
Scripture to consider - Matthew 7:8 - For every persistent one will get what he asks for. Every persistent seeker will discover what he longs for. And everyone who knocks persistently will one day find an open door. (TPT)
Reflections
As you walk this journey today, what is one thing you've been searching for, hoping to find for a long time?
What are the things or people or places surrounding you right now that hold mysteries waiting for your discovery?
How have you behaved in a way that has made these discoveries harder to find?
How can you make more room in your heart for discovery?
What are some specific things that you have yet to discover about yourself, and God and others?
How have you been transformed by a recent discovery, good or bad?
How will you invite God to guide you in this endeavor of discovering?
Quotable Perspectives
“When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.”
― Ralph Ellison
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
― Marcel Proust
“One of the advantages of being disorganized is that one is always having surprising discoveries.”
― A.A. Milne
“Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something different.”
― Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
“Some beautiful paths can't be discovered without getting lost.”
― Erol Ozan
A simple prayer for Believing:
Father, thank you for being my guide. Would you lead me in a new quest to discover the things that you have been longing to reveal to me? Would you open my eyes to you and to everything around me so that I can see in a new way, to see things as you see them? Would you ignite my zeal for discovery and bring me full circle from the place of assuming that I know to a place of being changed by what I find.