One night last week when the kids were still at camp and we were tired of spending money, but I was not wanting to just sit at home I convinced my husband we should go geocaching. (What is Geocaching you ask? Click HERE.)
Now I had never been geocaching and only had a vague idea about it from a friend of my daughters. So I downloaded the App, watched a short You Tube video and was ready for adventure.
Turns out just a mile down the road at a city park there are numerous opportunities to find the little green geocaching boxes. What never entered my head at this point in the journey is we might turn up empty-handed. But after an hour of scouring the underbelly of branches and brush in three different spots for three different treasures, that is exactly what happened.
Not only did we have nothing to show for our effort except scratches all over our bodies – my husband was annoyed because it was then 9pm and he was hot and sweaty – not what he had signed up for. I, too, was frustrated but for a different reason – I didn’t want to give up!
Several days later we are scratching like crazy from the Chigger bites, which only serve to solidify my husband’s resolve to not go geocaching with me in the woods again. And I’m still itching to go… because I didn’t find what I was looking for!
All in all, the whole situation failed to meet either one of our expectations, but I wouldn’t call the night wasted. We are already laughing about it, so that’s good. I remember a time in Spain a couple summers ago when I wasn’t sure one of us would ever laugh about the mishaps (backstory on Spain HERE).
The truth is unmet expectations in relationships and unfulfillment in life is par for the course. Everything is not going to be the way we want it to be. But just like with our geocaching adventure sometimes what God wants us to find is different, better than the treasure we are seeking after.
If our ultimate and highest goal is our own personal happiness, success or peace, we will ironically live in a state of perpetual disappointment. Even if we temporarily experience what it is we seek we will live hanging on tight in fear of it slipping back through our hands.
So instead of viewing others as on the same team and seeing challenging circumstances as God’s growing us in grace, we look at other people and situations as interfering with our agenda and keeping us from what our heart treasures – idols or false gods, as the Bible calls them.
But when God becomes our biggest treasure, our priorities change. Now when things don’t go our way and we don’t get what we wanted, instead of blaming our spouses, children, someone else or the situation it won’t rule us. In other words, we can let it go instead of being consumed by it. We can grant forgiveness, if necessary, instead of holding grudges. And instead of turning the trivial into life or death, our unmet desires will find its proper place – perhaps an honest assessment about our disappointment or maybe a heart to heart convo to keep deep seeded bitterness from growing.
Too often we make mountains out of molehills, and enemies out of loved ones. Thankfully this is not what happened on our geocaching adventure, but it could have. And just maybe that’s why I didn’t find what I was looking for… because sometimes we need reminding that no temporary treasure will ever deliver the soul satisfying security and peace we have in him and get to experience alongside the the ones he’s given us to do the “for better/for worse” of life with.
