I was flying back from Albuquerque today.  I flew there last night for a meeting with one of my suppliers today, and jumped on the plane afterward.  I was sitting next to a couple of guys talking about all the weird stuff you can buy on eBay.  You can find almost anything on eBay, and it’s amazing how many people will actually bid on the most odd and unique things.  Some of the things you can find are french fries and potato chips that look like Elvis, or the Virgin Mary, or even Jesus.  How do people notice these things?  Do they go through the whole bag looking for the likenesses?  I don’t know, but I do know that I’ve been eating potato chips for quite some time now and I haven’t seen Elvis or Kermit the Frog in any bag of Ruffles.  Of course, I probably ate them if there were any.

I wonder how much time the “potato chip likeness finder” people take to search for these likenesses.  What kind of passion do they have searching through potato chips and french fries?  Do they even really spend all that time to begin with?  Do they just stumble on the potato chip likeness?  It seems, though, that people are truly looking for something to see likenesses such as Elvis, the Virgin Mary, or Jesus on a potato chip.  Are their minds playing tricks on them, or do they want to see something so badly that they do see the image on the chip?

I know that many of us search for things in this world to try and fill a void in our lives.  Most of the time, I think we’re looking to be accepted, valued…loved.  We try to find fulfillment in monetary gain, keeping up with the Joneses, or even looking for love in all the wrong places.  We want this so badly that we “see” images of a good thing in something as worthless as a potato chip.  We place a higher value on things that make us feel good, but only temporarily…then we try to look for more and it always results in disappointment.

I was reading “Searching for God Knows What” by Donald Miller the past couple of days.  It’s sad that I have to be on business travel to find time to read.  I read a couple of chapters where Donald Miller writes about how people focus on comparison and rank…that people need to be above others, or that they need to be accepted by the “higher ranking” people in order to have value.  Their identity depends on it.  But he says something that is totally awesome…that Jesus came down from heaven…a place where all the emotional needs we have are met by God.  He is really the only One who can give us fulfillment, and He is the only one who can show us unconditional love…a love that tells us that we’re worth it, that we’re valued, that we matter to Him.  We really didn’t have to seek Him out.  He came down as a man and sought us out.  Imagine that.  Jesus came down from a place where everyone is loved, everyone is valued, everyone matters, and all our needs are met.  He came down to us to share that love and that fulfillment personally…to give us hope, peace, and joy.  We don’t have to search far because His passion is to seek us and to love us.

Maybe we're a bag of potato chips, and He's searching each one of us.  But, instead of looking for likenesses of Elvis or Kermit, He's looking for us to accept His love...that we will reflect Him.

“And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” ~2 Corinthians 3:18 (see my 6SEP06 post)

Hmm…you can’t find that on eBay.