Look What I Found

After being mostly packed and ready to move for more than a year, my family and I recently decided to stay put and began the arduous process of unpacking. 

As my wife and I were completing this task, we realised most of our boxes were filled with books. As we were unpacking them and putting them in one of our many bookshelves, our kids kept shouting at the top of their lungs: “Mummy, Daddy, look what I found!” Then they would proceed to show us their treasure: a newly found book they hadn’t seen in more than a year (I’m sure in kid years, it’s much longer). It was like Christmas in July! 

After their exclamation, they promptly plopped down and read that book—and so continued the cycle for the entire afternoon.

It’s amazing how exciting it can be to find a book you haven’t seen in a while and rediscover it anew. I myself have a pile of “new” old books I’m planning to reread.

Cleaning house

Long ago in Jerusalem, a king named Josiah came to power. “Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem thirty-one years. He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and walked in the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left” (2 Chronicles 34:1, 2).

Josiah began, little by little at first, to cleanse his land of the rampant idol worship and heathen practices that pervaded it. The Bible records that as he grew physically, his relationship with God and his love for Him grew as well. The kings who preceded Josiah had adopted many pagan practices, especially the worship of false gods. Because of this, in the eighteenth year of his reign, at the age of 26, he boldly decided to repair the temple of God in Jerusalem, which had fallen into disuse and was badly in need of repair (verse 8). 

Then one day, in the midst of repairing the temple, King Josiah’s workers happened across the long-lost “Book of the Law of the Lord” (verse 14). Can you imagine how excited and amazed they must have been? I can just hear their voices echoing, “King! King! Look what we found!”

“Then the king called together all the . . . people from the least to the greatest. He read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant. . . . The king . . . renewed the covenant in the presence of the Lord—to follow the Lord and keep his commands, regulations and decrees with all his heart and all his soul, and to obey the words of the covenant written in this book. Then he had everyone . . . pledge themselves to it; the people . . . did this in accordance with the covenant of God. . . . As long as . . . [King  Josiah] lived, they did not fail to follow the Lord, the God of their ancestors” (verses 29–33). 

After living their lives without God’s clear direction for years, it was understandable that they responded to His Word in this fashion. But a more important question is: how will you respond to what you believe God is telling you to do in your relationship with Him? 

Facing God again

God longs to bring you into a deeper relationship with Him. Maybe there was a time when you fell in love with God, were introduced to His Word and began reading it. But for many of us, the cares and worries of life break us down and in the midst of the deterioration, we “lose” sight of Him. Then, as King Josiah did, little by little, we begin to turn back toward God and one day we come face-to-face with the laws and precepts of His Word. 

When faced with His commands, will you respond as Josiah did, with confession and repentance and with a longing to go deeper with Him? Admittedly, it’s a scary thing to draw into a deeper, more intimate relationship with others. It’s likely that in the past—or present—you’ve been hurt by someone’s selfishness, carelessness or thoughtlessness, but God will never leave you or forsake you (Deuteronomy 31:6). In fact, He promises that if you search for Him with all your heart, you will find Him (Jeremiah 29:13). 

Today, choose God and you will find a deeper, richer, more joyful and peace-filled life than you ever could have imagined.