And Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary, “I have found the Book of the Law in the house of the LORD.” And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it. And Shaphan the secretary came to [Josiah], and reported to the king, “Your servants have emptied out the money that was found in the house and have delivered it into the hand of the workmen who have the oversight of the house of the LORD.” Then Shaphan the secretary told the king, “Hilkiah the priest has given me a book.” And Shaphan read it before the king.
When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, he tore his clothes. (2 Kings 22:8-11)
Maybe you saw the headlines: “Something Borrowed, Something Mixed-Up.” In January 2021, Wendie Taylor was watching TV with her 12-year-old daughter when the subject of weddings came up. Wendie’s daughter mentioned that she had never actually seen her mother’s wedding dress. Sure, she’d seen pictures, but never the dress itself.
So, Wendie decided to go get the special box out of storage. As she was working to get it down, she realized that even she had never actually looked in it since picking the package up from a professional garment preservation service. For 14 years, the dress had been in a sealed, unopened box.
And when Wendie finally opened the box? She discovered that the dress she’d been holding onto wasn’t hers. “It’s a beautiful dress,” she told news agencies who picked up the story after it went viral on social media, “it’s just not my dress.” Had she never opened the box, Wendie would have assumed she knew what was in it for the rest of her life. And she would have been wrong.
While it’s easy to shake your head at Wendie’s assumption, isn’t it even easier to live day by day with bigger assumptions? In fact, it doesn’t require anything at all from us to live with much greater, more eternally-significant assumptions. “I know what I’m doing. I’m good where I’m at. I know what tomorrow holds. If there is a God, I’m sure he’s happy with the life I’m living.”
How many will walk through today with those assumptions, never taking the time to open God’s Book and examine what he’s actually said? The life I’m building may be more than sufficient—even beautiful in my own eyes—but that doesn’t mean it’s life the way my Creator meant it to be, and my own assumptions don’t make it so.
Listen. You were created for a relationship with your Creator. Don’t try to build it on something borrowed or inherited. Just because you’ve been handed a box labeled “The Good Life” or “Salvation” or “Acceptable Worship,” don’t assume you know what’s on the inside of that package. Assume, and you very well may end up with something mixed-up.
Open God’s Book for yourself. Explore. Confirm. Develop a real spiritual appetite of your own. Stay curious, hungry, and thirsty. You can be God’s and God can be yours, but if you never open the “box,” who knows what you’re missing?
I believe you’re missing right things. Wise things. Corrective things. Needed things. Wondrous things.