By: Pastor Jarren Rogers

“You don’t need to seek opportunity. All you have to do is seek God. And if you seek God, opportunity will seek you.” – Mark Batterson

When I was a kid I wanted to be a spy. Then a doctor. Then a magician. Then an archeologist. Then a paleontologist. It seemed as if my occupational aspirations grew with my vocabulary.

It was when I wanted to be a paleontologist that I found myself doing a lot of digging. Daily, I would continue my search for dinosaur fossils. Holes began to pepper my backyard, much to my parent’s chagrin.

On lazy summer days, my search could go on from sunup to sundown. These long workdays would carry on for weeks and not once did I ever find a dinosaur fossil. (Although one time I did find bones. I was really excited! But, it ended up being our hamster we had buried a few months earlier.)

As I think about my fossil hunting adventures, I am reminded of this verse:

“Indeed, if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God” (Proverbs 2:3-5).

Just as I hunted and search for dinosaur fossils, day in and day out, we should be seeking God for wisdom and understanding. I would toil out in the hot sun for hours. And let me tell you, being on your knees in the dirt, bent over a hole, digging for hours is hard work. It definitely wasn’t easy.

But neither is finding answers in our circumstances. Sometimes, just like digging for fossils, our search for answers can go on for weeks. It takes a lot of time. The writer of Proverbs says that it requires hard work. It requires getting on your knees. It requires digging into God’s Word. It requires seeking His face.

Too often, we try to take a short cut. We can’t wait for how long it requires to gain wisdom so we try to gain wisdom or knowledge from ourselves. We try to use logic or past experiences to shed light on what we are to do. Sometimes this is necessary, but it can’t be our only source of insight. It can lead to doors being forced open that are better left closed and doors being slammed closed that God has propped open.

We must search after the wisdom that God freely offers, not looking into ourselves, but looking into Him. It is in our striving after God that we will not only find answers to our life problems, but we will also learn more about our God. It says that we will learn “the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.

Each of us is looking for answers in some aspect of our lives. Each of us needs wisdom that only God can provide. But it doesn’t come easily. According to this verse, insight only comes after we cry aloud for understanding.

Hidden treasure only comes after days and days of searching. Wisdom can only come from days and days of seeking God.

Parents: Set up a hypothetical scenario for your kids: If there was buried treasure in the backyard but you didn’t know where it was, how would you go about finding it? See what they say. Explain to them how seeking treasure is similar to seeking wisdom.