the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field...

a post written for www.renewthekingdom.com 

"the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has, and buys that field." matthew 13:44

one of the most beautiful things to me about the Lord, and the story of his people, is the way that He gives Himself to His people.
sometimes he sends prophets, sometimes angels, sometimes dreams, but always He sends. it's amazing. no matter how much His people follow or revere Him, ignore or reject Him, still he pursues.

it's a beautiful mystery. and yet, because God is so beyond logic, it makes perfect sense.

"then God said, 'let Us make man in Our image, according to our likeness..." genesis 1:26

we were created in the image of God. a people endowed somehow with the essence of the nature of the Creator.
the word "image" is from a root meaning "shadow" or "phantom"...so it's true that we are faint, at best. but it's there. woven into our being, in the very breath by which He breathed life into our dust: a piece of the Divine.

we are not, like Edward Scissorhands, a removed creation; we are as children, carrying a piece of the chromosomal make-up of our parents.

so it makes sense, in a way, that God, being perfect in love, would not allow us to wander off and be lost forever, like a project gone wrong, out of sight and out of mind. it makes sense that as a mother could not allow her child to disappear without concern or pursuit, the Father of creation could not allow for the ones He breathed life into to walk away from life in Him without doing everything to bring them back. (we are promised that even should a mother forget her child, still the Lord not forget us--isaiah 49:15)

and yet, it is baffling, amazing, and incomprehensible, that He should follow so far, wait so long, give so much, for a people so determined to be independent of Him.

there are countless scriptures...most of the old testament is made up of rebellion stories, of warnings and prophecies and "don't you see how much you've strayed??"
and over and over again, promises of God, pursuit of God, love of God, grace of God, restraint of His wrath, outpouring of His wrath in attempt to awaken a deaf people. relentless love.

"the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has, and buys that field." matthew 13:44

we are like a field. matthew 13 doesn't say anything about what the field looked like, whether it was producing fruit, whether its soil was tilled or hardened, whether or not it was good soil...it simply says that there was a treasure hidden in a field. and the man knew that it was there. and he didn't make the field pretty, spruce it up, and then buy it. he didn't get an assessor or an appraisal or test the fertility of the soil. he knew the treasure was there, and from joy he sold everything. from joy. and bought the whole field. because of the treasure he knew it contained.

and i bet people looked at the field and thought, "you gave up everything for that?"

and i bet he smiled knowingly.

God is like the man who spared nothing because he saw the value, the very hidden value, somewhere you never would have guessed.

"He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?" romans 8:32

should the field be fertile, producing lush growth, fruit to provide and nourish...
should the field be fallow, clumped dirt, little weeds and pointless plants popping up, no crop to be seen...

no matter.

somewhere deep inside is a treasure that has always been, since we were knit together in the secret places. the breath of God. His own image.

and God gave everything--from JOY He gave--to redeem the field, because of the treasure that He breathed into it at the foundation of the world.

it is a value beyond compare. and it is in every one of us. waiting quietly, hidden, to be offered up for redemption and built into the kingdom of God.

Lord, we pray Your kingdom come.