For almost two years, from time to time, I searched for a brand new router that I purchased for a certain job. I used it on the job, then later, when I looked for it to use it, I could not find it. I looked all through the work van several times. I looked carefully all through the shop several times. I was thinking it was in a cardboard box, so that is what I was looking for. Recently, I was just standing there in my shop, looking at the cluttered set of shelves before me. I was not looking for anything in particular. My attention was drawn to an orange canvas case with the brand name on it, Rigid. I thought, “Naw, it can’t be!” I stepped closer and bent over to read on the case these words penned with a permanent marker: “Router. Calhoun”. I thought, “Well, I’ll be! Here is that router.” It had been there all the time. I had “looked at it” many times, but I had failed to “see” it! I was looking for a box with a new router in it, and it was in its canvas carrying case. The set of shelves it was sitting on in plain view was very cluttered with all kinds of stuff. Even though it was in plain view, it was lost in the clutter. Now that I have “seen” it, the orange case stands out clearly.
So many times we approach God and the Word of God, with him in a box of our own ideas. We have our ideas about God, but we fail to have a God encounter. So often we are so cluttered up with all kinds of thoughts, activities, and man-made structured programs, we fail to engage with the thoughts, activities, and program of God. The same healing, delivering, infilling life and power of God as demonstrated in Jesus and the early church is there all the time. Because we are so busy doing our own thing, we fail to tap in on it and operate in it. Sometimes we need to just stop the show, just stop all the religious activity, and give ourselves a space of just praying and waiting on the Lord to just “see” what God wants to show us. He wants to show the true new birth for every person. He wants to show the full meaning of identification with Christ through water baptism. He wants to show the supernatural power of the Spirit in our lives through the baptism of the Holy Spirit just the way it was experienced in the Bible. He wants to show the full meaning of receiving the broken body of Jesus for healing, and his covenant shed blood for forgiveness through communion. And, he wants every believer to “come” to him and find how being yoked up with him, being led by the Spirit, is the “easy” and “light” way of living (Matthew 11:28-30). It has been there all the time.