Digging for BINGO

In Matthew 13:44 we read: "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.” NIV

There is this treasure in a field. Who put it there? No one knows. A man learns about the treasure. So he takes off into the field to begin digging for it. He did not discover the treasure in his first hole. He begins digging hole after hole after hole. He is diligently seeking. He is working hard. It was back breaking work to move shovel full after shovel full of dirt. How deep did he dig each hole? One foot deep? Three feet deep? Yet, hole after hole yields nothing. He is sweating and growing tired. He is getting dirty. Can you see his face smeared with dirt?

After hundreds and hundreds of shovels full of dirt, he strikes a box – Thump! In his excitement he shovels faster and deeper, ignoring the pain in his back, and the sweat dripping into his eyes and his exhaustion. He carefully shovels the dirt from around it. Gingerly he raises the box out of the hole, opens it and discovers a wonderful treasure. There is only one problem. The field doesn’t belong to him so the treasure doesn’t belong to him, yet. There is no “finder’s keepers” law.

He goes and looks up the owner. He inquires about the sale of the field. They banter back and forth. Each one is extolling the virtues or vices of the field. When the price is finally arrived at, the man realizes he must sell everything he has in order to purchase the field. In today’s language we would say that he sold his house, his boat, both of his cars, his cottage at the lake, all of his furniture and cashed in his IRA’s. The treasure he discovered was worth the price. This treasure cost him huge volumes of time, energy, pain, and money. He willingly gave up everything that he had in order to acquire that field.

Jesus compares this story to the Kingdom of God. Consider this: God has hidden a treasure for you. It contains the wealth of heaven and the depths of God’s wisdom. Yet, He will not just reach down and hand it to us. We are challenged to “dig” for it. It will cost us time, energy, pain and perhaps money. There is a cost to it. The acquiring of this treasure could very well cost us everything that we hold dear, everything we strive for, and everything of value to us.

Are you willing to dig, not knowing what each hole may yield? Are you willing to struggle and sweat searching for the treasure and see little if no visible results? In our microwave, fast food world we want everything in an instant. Our gratification must come early or we quickly give up and move on to somewhere else. If you are not willing to invest yourself, if you will not grow in the grace of patience and if you refuse to commit to the journey, then you might as well stop right here.

Digging holes is hard, strenuous labor. Moving shovel full after shovel full of dirt and seeing few visible results can get disheartening. Frustration can set in and we might just throw up our hands and cry, “Forget it Lord. It’s not worth it.”

Yet, the hole digger in the parable never quit. Perhaps he discovered that each day he grew less tired. He realized that he could dig more holes before exhaustion set. He muscles were growing stronger. His back was firmer. His stamina was greatly increasing. He was not discovering the treasure but he was developing himself in other areas. And he never questioned the knowledge that the treasure was there in the field. He just kept to the task and one day, BINGO! It was worth it all.