One of the many metaphors Jesus used when he spoke of the kingdom of heaven was the image of buried treasure. It was not uncommon for people in Jesus' day to experience the reality of discovering buried treasure while plowing their fields. The middle east was a battleground in the ancient world between foriegn invaders who used the land as a highway to move from East to West. As John Claypool writes in his book on "Stories Jesus Still Tells" ... "People who had to live through foriegn invasions soon learned that the earth was the only safe place to protect their possessions. The folk who took such precautions were often killed themselves, so their treasures remained in the earth, only to be discovered accidentally by someone else." I think it is interesting that many treasures were discovered by people who were at work in their own dirt, making the discovery purely by accident. What if God's grace can be discovered in similar ways? We live in a world where people try to find God's grace in places other than their work, but what if grace is in the dirt of our lives? Think about it the next time work gets really dirty. Your mind may be on your work, but underneath it all, there lies buried a treaure for you. God is at work in the dirt.
Dennis
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