One day, as I was about to leave our home, I picked up my keys and my money clip from the table beside my chair in the living room. My sunglasses weren’t there. I went to my desk in my home office and they weren’t there either. “Have you seen my sunglasses?” I called out to my wife, Melanie, who w
as in the other room. “No, I haven’t seen them,” she answered.
I always keep my sunglasses beside my chair on that table. So I went back into the living room and looked again. No, they weren’t there. So back to my desk I went to more carefully look. (This is a ridiculous habit I have, looking in the same places more than once when I’ve lost something.) The glasses still weren’t there.
“Are you sure you didn’t move them when you were cleaning?” I yelled to Melanie again. “I haven’t touched them,” she answered. “Maybe I left them beside the bed on the nightstand,” I thought. But they weren’t there either.
Now I was beginning to get frustrated. I knew that my sunglasses didn’t just disappear and I knew that Melanie had cleaned the living room earlier in the day. It doesn’t take a genius (just a husband) to put two and two together. “Melanie,” I called, “you must have moved them. They aren’t where I left them.” “I haven’t touched your glasses,” Melanie said from the other room in a way that let me know I was pushing the envelope. “Why in the world would she move them and then not remember?” I silently thought to myself.
Then the thought occurred to me that I would check in the bathroom. I knew I had never felt a need to wear my sunglasses in there before, but I’d check just to be sure. I went into the bathroom and looked all around the bathtub and toilet. Just as I suspected – no sunglasses. I turned to glance around the sink and . . . then, um, I, ugh, caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. There they were – pushed back on my head. I had been wearing them the whole time. The thing I had been looking so diligently for, I already had. I thought the prudent thing would be to simply tell Melanie I found them in the bathroom if she asked. She really didn’t need more information than that. Thankfully, she didn’t ask.
My search for my sunglasses isn’t unlike the search many people conduct in an attempt to become what they think they ought to be. Many are zealously looking for something they already have. If you want to discover your true value, it’s important to look in the right place. The place to look is to the Rock of Ages, the One in whom we find our very life. The blueprint for your original design can be seen in the person of Jesus Christ. He is the pattern for God’s creation of you. If you want to see yourself the way God has designed you to be, look at Jesus! He is the picture of what a human infused with Divine Life looks like.
In Him the search for significance is over. For anybody to keep looking for for value through what he does is a waste of time and completely unnecessary. You have been joined to Perfection through your adoption in Jesus Christ. He defines you.
Some try to find a sense of value through their church involvement. Others hope to gain it in their careers. Many try to find it through countless self-improvement techniques. Have you done these things? It’s so important to know that what you are trying to find is already yours. You can stop looking. You need only to look to the true Source of your identity. What you are looking for, you already have because Christ Himself is your very Life. The search is over and the only thing left to do is enjoy what’s yours through Him.
