We are beginning to understand the meaning of this parable in a personal way, perhaps more than we ever have before. We have tasted His Kingdom, and we want more of it. God is forming a deeper desire in us to see the world resemble and align with His Kingdom. By degrees, He has changed our perspectives and pursuits so that we can willingly and joyfully sell everything and go anywhere He asks of us to multiply His Kingdom. Even on the toughest days (which have been many during the past year), we still count it joy to obey His direction to us to “leave everything and follow Me.”
I find it curious that the man in the parable hides the treasure again after it is found. It suggests that this treasure is so valuable to him, so precious, that he wants to keep it a secret, at least for a time. Those around him witnessing his subsequent actions must have wondered, “Why is he selling all he has to buy an empty field?” His joy and passion surely were evident to them, but they didn’t fully understand because they could not see what was hidden beneath the untilled ground. Even as believers, the eyes of our hearts are similarly closed sometimes when it comes to experiencing the truth of God’s Kingdom and what Christ requires of us as His followers.
The only way our hearts could more fully understand His Kingdom as treasure was through surrender. For us this meant laying down our plans for God’s plan, saying “yes” to the Father when He directly posed this question to us: Will you abandon all to follow me– your perceived security, your material wealth, your friends, your family? Saying this initial “yes” was perhaps the hardest part. We thought we were living in surrender, at least as best we could. Yet when Christ confronted us with this question, our experience was that of the rich young ruler in the Gospels. Our choice was to walk away more sorrowful than we had been before or to say “yes, we will do whatever you ask of us.”
As God removes the scales from our eyes little by little, moment by moment, we find ourselves asking how many times our past actions, attitudes, choices, and priorities have been defined by rationalization and justification rather than genuine submission and surrender to the Lord. We may have said that we were surrendering it to the Lord, but were we really attempting to conform His will to our way, rather than saying “yes” to Him before the question was even asked? It is all too easy (and perhaps encouraged, even among believers) to justify our actions, plans, and attitudes by the pervasive values of our culture and not the Kingdom that we belong to as Christ-followers. But Jesus requires more of us than what our culture allows.
We are learning daily that true submission and surrender can only happen through humility. In His final moments with the disciples, Jesus told them that He was leaving to prepare a place for them in His Father’s home (John 14:1-7). He told them that they already knew the road He was taking, to which Thomas replied, “Master, we have no idea where you’re going. How do you expect us to know the road?” (v. 5) Thomas’ response reflected humility. In a literal sense, the twelve had been following Jesus wherever He went in teaching and preaching the gospel. Now that Jesus said He was physically leaving them, they expressed confusion as to how they were supposed to follow Him because they were so accustomed to allowing Him to direct their time, where they laid their heads at night, and whom they interacted with. Their lives were not their own but were wholly submitted and surrendered to their Master.
Jesus was showing them a spiritual truth– that He is the way, also the Truth, and also the Life, and that no one gets to the Father apart from Him. They may not have fully understood this truth at the time, but they reacted to His words in a way that displayed their utter dependence upon Him. Show us where you are going, and we will follow that road. We’re used to walking in your footsteps, not creating our own pathways that we then characterize as following you.
When we humbly bring our lives to the Lord, He will show us those areas that we still need to submit and surrender to Him so that His Kingdom may become our greatest treasure. It is a treasure worthy of abandoning every other desire and motivation, even when others don’t understand.
A Life Called to Love 