Searching for the Breadcrumbs
When our boys were little, the popular series Where’s Waldo? arrived on the book scene. English illustrator Martin Handford produced the first work in 1987. Each two-page spread was full of busy drawings of people, objects, and details. The goal was to sift through all of the distractions and locate Waldo – a slender, unassuming fella wearing jeans, a red and white-striped sweater and cap, round glasses, and a simple smile.
Children all over the world (and I suspect quite a number of their parents) spent hours poring over the pages to find Waldo, who was always hidden in plain sight.
Presently, those children are all grown up. No longer are they searching for Waldo. Now, they’re searching for peace and significance amid the distractions of a digital age steeped in the pressures of social media, an overwhelming and immediate abundance of news and information, and escapism through AI-generated fantasy.
It’s hard to see the forest for the trees, as they say. For the Christian, the battle to focus on “heavenliness” over worldliness is a legitimate fight absolutely worth the effort.
We sense deep in our souls that we don’t belong here and that what we see and experience through our five senses is not ultimate reality. Scripture confirms this.
Our Lord and Savior prayed for us on the night He was betrayed, saying, “They are not of this world, even as I am not of it.” (John 17:16) In Paul’s letter to the Philippian church, he reminded them, “…Our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ…” (Philippians 4:20) Peter appealed to the believers in their new identity in 2 Peter 2:11: “Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in this world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.”
Again in Hebrews, the author labels those living by faith as “aliens and strangers on earth.” (Hebrews 11:13) He describes us as a people “looking for a better country…longing for a better country – a heavenly one” (vs. 14, 16).
In a sea of chaos, noise, and busyness – honestly, every distraction the enemy has thrown onto the canvas of our lives – we long for Home. We search for Home.
We weed out the false and the frenzied, striving to take hold of the true and the beautiful. We strike down the profane and pornographic to grasp onto the holy and pure. We wade through the cheap and flashy and cling to the excellent and unpretentious.
Brothers and sisters, this world is not our home. But while we sojourn here for a season, let’s search daily and diligently for signs of God’s character, presence, and activity. These are the breadcrumbs on the trail to our true Home, leading us in hope and joy until the Day we find the Lord waiting for us with open arms. At the end of our search, we won’t find Waldo. We’ll find Jesus!
