One Thursday night at a youth group I attended in Guat, I was introduced to something called a treasure hunt. It wasn’t the ordinary treasure hunt you might be thinking of. This treasure hunt was Holy Spirit lead(the best kind).
Game Instructions:
1. Get out a piece of paper
2. label the paper with different categories.. example; needs, names, place, miscellaneous, and appearance.
3. sit and pray and wait to see if God reveals anything to you.
I sat and prayed for about 15 minutes before God started speaking to me. Under the ‘names’ category I began to list a few names that I was hearing. They ended up being irrelevant. Under ‘miscellaneous’ I didn’t write anything. I also did not write anything for the category ‘appearance’. BUT under ‘place’ I wrote down ‘store’ and under ‘needs’ I wrote down on my piece of paper ‘love and forgiveness’… Super basic, I know, but thats what I felt like the Holy Spirit was telling me.
Next we were asked to partner up with someone in the room. I partnered up with a girl named Jimmena(WHO I LOVED). On her treasure hunt list she had only filled out the ‘names’ category and the ‘appearance’ category. Her names were also irrelevant. BUT for ‘appearance’ she had written down ‘black pants and yellow shirt’.
Our final instructions “Go out and find someone who fits the categories on your paper”… alright lets do this. Jimmena and I started walking around the church. Its a mega church so it was pretty big. We reviewed our categories together and decided that for my ‘place’ category the closest place to a store in the church was the church cafe, so we headed that way. Once we were there we started looking around for people who fit Jimmena’s description category. Under her ‘appearance’ category was ‘black pants and yellow shirt’ so that is what we were searching for. We looked all around trying to find someone who fit the description when finally we saw a man in black pants with a yellow tie on. Ehhh, close enough. We decided he was our man. We approached him and introduced ourselves.
I began to explain to him what I was doing in Guatemala. Then I started explaining the treasure hunt to him, and how we felt like the Holy Spirit had lead us to him. Then I asked him if I could pray for him in anyway. He looked at me and then Jimmena, and then asked us if we could step outside, so we followed. Once we were outside he looked at me and said “wow, are you trying to make me cry?” I was puzzled and wasn’t really sure how to reply but I told him “No, but if you need to cry thats okay!” I asked again how I could pray for him and thats when he busted. Never in a million years would I have ever imagined that this man was going to start talking to me about what he did. He began to tell me that he has been having an affair on his wife. I was shocked and again I did not know how to respond. While he was telling me the rest of his story, I immediately remembered what my ‘needs’ category said on my paper. The Holy Spirit had told me that whoever this person was, they needed ‘love and forgiveness’ and thats exactly what this man needed. After he had told me everything he was struggling with I was able to pray for him. I was able to pray that he would receive God’s love and forgiveness that was so mercifully being given to him. I explained to the man that whenever God looks at people, he does not see their sins that have been committed. He only sees his children. I told him that it doesn’t matter how big or how small your sin is, all sin is equal, and no sin can make God love you any less. After many prayers and a lot of hugs I said goodbye to the man in the yellow tie.
Later that night I was lying in bed thinking about the man.(Silly me, I forgot to ask him what his name was so he will forever be “the man in the yellow tie”) I began to pray for him again and then I began to thank God. I thanked God for being so merciful and forgiving. I thanked God for always using sin and evil for His own good. I thanked him for leading me to the man in the yellow tie and allowing me to pray for him.
I was very skeptical at first about the whole ‘treasure hunt’ thing. I wasn’t sure that I was going to like it, and it was definitely out of my comfort zone. But after surrendering to God and being willing to test it out I was rewarded big time. It is amazing what God can reveal to you if you are willing to take a step out of your comfort zone. There will always be some kind of reward and some kind of story to tell afterward.
If you are struggling with any kind of sin, no matter how big or small, God is always fighting for you. I pray that you will accept and understand that he is always loving you. He is always after your heart. He will never give up on you.
“God searches for us, no matter what dark place we’re in or what door we’re behind. He hears our impossible, audacious prayers for ourselves and others. And He delights in forgiving us and then answering those prayers by letting us return home to Him.” -Bob Goff
