It’s that quality of curiosity that sparks questions like, “where did you get that?”

In junior high, it wasn’t enough to admire one of my friend’s outfits…I had to know where it came from.  A pair of designer jeans, purchased in a cool (and more expensive) store like Mickey Finn’s, held more value for me than an identical pair of jeans purchased at KMart for less money.  The same jeans, same designer, same material but the difference in the source store made a difference for me – then.  And I’m not alone.  I found a blog called Where did u get that – the fashion blogger from London living in New York.  Hope she doesn’t mind that I linked her site!

I have thankfully outgrown that adolescent fixation on placing value on an item solely based on the cool store it came from.  I still look for brand names, but I’m not ashamed, and even a bit proud, to say I’m wearing a great deal that came from a consignment shop.

I think on some level, we are all curious.  Everyone is interested in knowing where things come from, at least superficially.

And yes, there was a time in my life when my my level of curiosity to discover the source was superficial enough to be completely satisfied by knowing the name of a store.  I didn’t stop to think of all that had gone before its arrival on the shelf.  The item had traveled through airports and skies and shipyards, countless miles, even continents, to find its place on the shelf in the store.  And prior to that, someone had envisioned, designed, financed, and arranged for production of the product.  Underpaid factory workers in countries like China or India had produced, assembled and packaged it.

My imagination never traveled back farther than my own frame of reference, never considering the true origins of a product…which of course go back further than the factories, to the farms and fabric mills, to the people behind those operations, and to a million details that fall into place to land the item in the store…and in my hands.

Recognizing the source can produce a lot of thought.  A lot of work – for what?  In our busy, time-constrained lives where we are used to push-button, instant answers, we can’t afford to think that long or deeply about the source of daily things and what it means for our lives.  We’d never get anywhere fast.

I wonder, though, do we carry that attitude into our lives with God?  Curiosity may have started us on our journey to ask questions, to seek God, and we may have found answers.  But how deep have we let those answers penetrate the layers of our life – have we found the source in difficulties, in pain, in heartbreak, in death?

Today’s blog post has a source.  It is from a line I read in the book “Pearl of Great Price” by Joni Eareckson Tada.  A simple, true line in one of the readings that said, “Jesus is the source.”  However, when I think about the circumstances under which I bought the book at one of Joni’s family retreats, after a tough, emotional week to which I had been sent to help a disabled woman, because I had experienced distress myself and felt called to reach beyond myself and learn to love others better, because I claim to love and serve Jesus Christ and that is what He commanded…the simple line becomes much more complex.   But in going back and tracing its source, the truth that “from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” (Romans 11:36) becomes that much clearer, vivid, and real.

How does the thread of your life lead to the source?  Maybe it’s time to think about that.