Any child can tell you, hunting for treasure is fun. It’s always an adventure when you go looking for something buried, something lost, something hidden. If only we felt the same way when it comes to people. When’s the last time you ventured past shallow water with someone? How often do you go exploring?

In Origins, we want your faith to drive you to be interested in the people right in front of you, inspired to explore others’ needs and engaged in serving your community. It can be easy to forget to be interested in those right in front of us as we hurry from one place to the next. Our work and passions can easily tempt us to sacrifice the meaningful for the productive. But relationships are the most meaningful activity we can participate in – so we practice being interested.

Moving beyond just being interested, exploring takes work. Since many of our relationships revolve around activities, projects and work there’s always a productive reason to not challenge someone’s halfhearted, “good” when we ask, “how are things?” We know it’s efficient to accept half-truths and we know digging can be hard work.

It’s not easy to carry other’s burdens when we have our own baggage to lug as well. But if love was easy it would lose its meaning and buried treasure is the sort worth seeking. The best parts, the hardest parts, the most meaningful parts of people are below the surface. It’s there you find what matters most to them: their joys, their fears, their passions, their dreams, their hopes, their regrets. You can’t find these gems on the surface, you have to go digging.

This week, dig a little deeper with the people in your life. Don’t be satisfied with a halfhearted “good.” Ask God to inspire you to go exploring and ask him for the strength and courage to embrace what you find in others.