Searching for Hidden Treasure

I was 7 years old, searching for something greater before I was even old enough to understand.

I couldn't have told anyone what I was searching for. I didn't have the words for it. I only knew something greater had to be beyond what I was experiencing.

Years later, I would find the words for that search already written in the Scriptures.

Proverbs 2:1–5, AMPC

“My son, if you will receive my words and treasure up my commandments within you, Making your ear attentive to skillful and godly Wisdom and inclining and directing your heart and mind to understanding, if you cry out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, If you seek [Wisdom] as for silver and search for skillful and godly Wisdom as for hidden treasures, Then you will understand the reverent and worshipful fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.”

When I read those words now, I see something I couldn't possibly have understood then.

I had been searching.

Proverbs 2 describes that search beautifully. There is receiving, listening, crying out, searching, and finding.

I especially love the words “hidden treasures.”

When I think of hidden treasure, I think of something precious that isn't lying out in the open. It has to be searched for. Someone has to believe it is there and value it enough to keep digging.

That is what God's Word has become to me.

But my search didn't begin because I understood wisdom's value.

My search began because I was desperate.

I was abused as a little girl and was running from an evil I didn't fully understand.

I wasn't thinking about theology and knew nothing about Godly wisdom or discernment.

I was looking for a hiding place.

I was crying out for something greater than what I was experiencing.

Only now, being older and a little wiser, can I read passages like Proverbs 2 and recognize something I couldn't know then.

God heard my cry.

Proverbs 2:3, AMPC

“If you cry out for insight and raise your voice for understanding…”

I cried out before I even understood what I was crying out for.

I know now that God was with me.

I continued searching as He drew me toward His truth and His promises.

The Scripture doesn't become powerful because my story resembles it.

My story finds its meaning because His Word is true.

Proverbs 2:6, AMPC

“For the Lord gives skillful and godly Wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding.”

That is why learning to recognize God's voice as I got older became so important to me.

So many voices surrounded me: fear, pain, people, circumstances, memories, and my own thoughts.

Throughout my life, I kept believing something greater than what I was experiencing had to exist. I kept looking up. I kept reaching out. There had to be more! It became survival for me..

Proverbs 2:7–8, AMPC

“He hides away sound and godly Wisdom and stores it for the righteous (those who are upright and in right standing with Him); He is a shield to those who walk uprightly and in integrity, That He may guard the paths of justice; yes, He preserves the way of His saints.”

As a child, I thought I was simply searching for a way to escape what frightened me.

The more I searched, the more I discovered that God's wisdom didn't just tell me right from wrong. His wisdom began directing my feet away from destruction and toward the path He had prepared for me.

Proverbs 2:10–11, AMPC

“For skillful and godly Wisdom shall enter into your heart, and knowledge shall be pleasant to you. Discretion shall watch over you, understanding shall keep you.”

Now when I read these Scriptures, I can look backward and see that little girl differently.

She didn't know Proverbs 2. She couldn't even read when that search first began. She didn't know how to explain what she needed.

She was simply desperate for a hiding place.

But God knew.

What began as a desperate cry became a hunger to know His voice.

And the older I become, the more amazed I am when I discover passages of Scripture that reveal something God was doing long before I understood it.

That is why I keep searching His Word.

There is treasure here.

I was searching for something greater, and I found Him, and He calls me His Own!!