One of my Dad’s most reliably endearing character traits is his ability to lose something within about 8 seconds of arriving at our house. If I had a tenner for every time I have heard him nonchalantly call out, “Has anyone seen my glasses?” I would be up there with Ivana Trump. I am also therefore, used to the echoing voice of my mother asking, “Where were you when you last had them?”
Surely if my Dad knew that, he would know where his glasses were. Stands to reason.

Mary went to the tomb after Jesus had died.That was the last place she had seen Him. So it was the logical and sensible place to look for Him. But Jesus was not where she had left Him. He was not just in her past any longer. He was not buried in the tomb forever as a painful, bitter memory filled with tearful nostalgia. He was not the disappointment of unfulfilled faith. He was in her present (though she did not yet know it) and in her future.

Where was God the last time you looked?
Was He somewhere in your past? Was He is your last church? In that close friendship? In that season just gone? Do you keep ‘going to the tomb’, hoping you will spot Him in the gloom? Does your mind keep replaying some precious moment from Him, trying to hold onto it or even recreate it?

Let me share something with you as gently as I am able to.
Jesus is not in your past. He is with you as you read these words, in your new situation, waiting for you to trust Him in THIS season. He is watching for your faith to rise and your heart to reach for Him once more. He does not want you to hanker after the ‘old days’ for they are just that. OLD.

God is not ‘where you left Him’, He is way ahead of you, and also wonderfully next to you.