Where's Jesus?

My pastor once said, “Reading the Bible without looking for Jesus is like reading a ‘Where’s Waldo’ book without looking for Waldo.” It doesn’t make a lot of sense. I wonder if life isn’t the same. Maybe living life without looking for Jesus in the everyday is just as pointless.



I wonder if we looked for Him throughout the day, in all places and situations, if we would find Him where we least expect. Maybe we’d catch a glimpse of His love in the movie we’re watching, whether the people who made the movie meant to do it or not. Maybe we’d read a book and see the emptiness in the lives of the characters and realize how much we have, how full our lives are with Him. We might remember that there is a lost world out there who needs Him. We might go to work and see Him there, in a person who is kind, in a flyer on the bulletin board.


The Bible says, “For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” (Romans 1:20) The whole world has creation all around them like an arrow pointing to God. But most of them aren’t looking for Him. For those people the world doesn’t make sense. It is simply a book crowded with drawings of random people, no why, no rhyme or reason to any of it. No Waldo, so to speak. No Jesus.


The thing is, most of the time, I forget to look for Him too. Most of the time I go through my day, caught up in all the things of life—kids and laundry and dishes and messes and going places and doing things. And I don’t even see Him. I don’t see Him when I clean because I hate cleaning, and I don’t like doing it, but He’s there. He’s there in my cleaning because when I clean it makes my husband feel loved. When I see it like that, my cleaning becomes and act of love, and God is always in on it when we love people. I don’t see Him in the faces of my children who were made in His image. I’m too busy being frustrated that they made a mess. I don’t see how much I’m like them, and how patient God is with me when I’m the one making a mess.


Most of the time, I don’t look for Him, and I don’t see Him. But He’s there, if I would just stop for one second, and look. And I want to do that. I want to look for Him, I want to see Him. He isn’t confined to a building or a book. He’s everywhere, and He’s in me. I want to look for Him in the places I don’t expect to find Him. I want to go through my life looking for Jesus everywhere, because that is the only way for it to make sense and have meaning.