Treasure: What would you give up for it?

The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over it goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls, and upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.

 -Matthew 13:44-46

This verse has been eating at me for an entire week and while I don't claim to be much of a scholar anymore (if I ever was), I feel there's a lot to take away from it. Here we witness Jesus speaking in parables to help understand something that seems beyond human comprehension. It's important to note that he says "is like" rather than "is". Ultimately these parables will fall short but they do a good job getting us closer to understanding that we once were. So what is it saying? I don't know, but I'll tell you what I think it's saying.

First let's get our heads around what exactly we're hearing here. Imagine walking through a field. Maybe if you're like me it's easier to imagine hiking through the woods, wandering and exploring. You come to a clearing and see something sticking out of the ground. It's something extremely valuable, maybe a briefcase full of Google stocks (most companies don't actually issue stock certificates anymore but just imagine). You don't take it because you're afraid it might belong to someone who might not be happy about you having it so you cover it back up to make sure nobody else happens upon it should they come walking through later.

You know the value of that briefcase is extraordinary and you can barely sleep at night. Finally after time goes by of restless nights, you can take no more. You sell your house (you're lucky to be in an area where you can actually sell a house these days), your car, every possession you own so that you can manage enough money to go to the owner of that land and make the best offer possible to buy the property the briefcase is buried on.

What if it's not there after you buy it? What if in the time you went to sell everything, some kid came wandering by and found it and took it home? You just gave up everything. You sold everything you had, your shelter, your transportation, everything that has meaning to you. And you bought that land. That land has far less value without that briefcase, but does the thought of it maybe not being there keep you from giving up all you have?

Nope.

Heaven is that thing (I purposely don't say place) that holds more value than anything you could ever come to own and so if giving up everything to have it is your only chance, you take that chance.

What do you value in this world? I mean, what truly guides your decisions in life?

Are you guided by adventure? Maybe a personal sense of accomplishment. How about money? Do you take that better career at all costs?

Or is it something else? What do you value?

Family? Would you give up anything to be with them?

God? What if that means giving up an entire lifestyle that you've become so comfortable with?

I'm a man, and as such, only know the perspective of a man. I don't know if it's similar for women, tell me if so, but I find that I'm living in a world that so often judges the worth of a man by his ability to earn money. By what he can provide for himself and others. While many would say that there are more important things, I so often realize that others would be impressed by me more if I wore nicer clothes, drove a fast sports car or big truck, or if I owned all kinds of toys that others could try out. That is the world that I live in, and yet, it's not what I value.

Money has never been of high value to me beyond providing needs. I have spent most of my life buying experiences with others rather than things of value. I drive a 1998 Chevy Cavalier with rust on the body and almost 200,000 miles. The only things I could sell for any real value would be my Novara Safari touring bicycle and the MacBook Pro that I'm writing this from. That's about it. I don't have a lot of nice clothes, mostly just comfortable t-shirts. I don't stack up to what many feel is impressive.

And yet, I bought into that world.

I assumed that to be worthy of what mattered to me most, to be loved, that I needed to make more money. I took a job on this assumption, thought it would be impressive. I don't regret much in life because until there is a way to go back in time, there's not much good in regretting things. But I regret taking a job because I felt the money would make me a better person.

There is nothing wrong with money, it serves its purpose in this life, but when we find a true treasure we better be willing to sell or give up all that falls short of it's worth because to not do so would be foolish.

Father, I have withheld so many things that I have placed as at least equally valuable as you. Please forgive me for not understanding that you are the treasure most worth pursuing, the only part of life that can be nothing but good. I thank you for that unconditional love you have for your children, a love we cannot fathom but understand the significance of. I give you what little I have and am and pray that you would allow my life to reflect the undeserved blessings you freely give to all who would give up anything to have you in their lives. Amen.

I leave you with this.

Micah Tawlks - Treasure

Running Lost In The Woods (Psalm 49:12-14)

This morning I found myself in the book of Psalms which to be quite honest, I don't often explore as much as I should. My comfort zone is really in the gospels and even more so in the letters from Paul. I find this a little odd because I myself have long enjoyed writing poetry, despite not having revealed any in quite some time. Poetry has this ability to paint with words in broad strokes and captivate the imagination. It speaks from the heart of the one writing, but also from the heart of the interpreter who is reading it from their own point of view.

Perhaps this is why poetry is the language of music. Almost every popular song out there (regardless of whether it is musically complex) has a theme in that it is written to resonate with others. It might be some beautiful story about love or love lost (Adele, I hope you cheer up soon) but it also might be something far less noble like just looking to have a good time dancing.

Psalms is one of the best collections of poetry in the Bible and it's no wonder that many hymns and even modern worship songs are based around verses taken from this beautiful book of expression about who God is to God's people. It is also a very honest book full of both praise and petition, but also confession of doubt or of a wavering faith.

How many times have I struggled to see God at work in my life? How many times have I found myself overwhelmed by the difficulty situations that this world sometimes brings and wondered, where is God and why can't He just show up in the way I want? The number is probably far too many to count, but it seems that if we're often doubting God and struggling to see His face in this world, we are in good company as countless times throughout Psalms we see mentions of praise for who we believe God is, an assurance that we truly trust that if God could just intervene we know what God is capable of. We also see grief expressed in what often follows which is something to the effect of, "God I know you're the almighty God, a God of love and grace who knows no match, but why then, if you are all of these things, have you not put on your cape and wisked me away from this struggle? I know you could save me from this, but are you going to ever show up?"

But then I stumbled upon something that I really want to focus on. The idea that, yes God can do all things, but that we only allow God's work in our lives to truly glorify Him when we stop relying on ourselves, when we stop putting God in second place to us as ruler over our own life.

People, despite their wealth, do not endure; they are like the beasts that perish. This is the fate of those who trust in themselves, and of their followers, who approve their sayings. They are like sheep and are destined to die; death will be their shepherd.

-Psalm 49:12-14

Confession time, I wrestle with God constantly over who should have control over my life. God lets me win though and it's only in discovering my inadequacies that I am able to fall on my face and plead for Him to take over.

Once when I was a kid I was walking through the woods near my house. My dad and a couple others were with me as we were returning from a hike down to the creek and at some point I decided to get out ahead of the group on the path. Eventually I stopped and looked back but did not see anyone. They were hiding to prove a point and it was only when I realized that while I liked the idea of being leader of this hike in theory, I was not the best equipped for it. I didn't know my way back so I turned and sprinted back in the direction from which I came. I tripped over a root and fell face first to the ground. I was cut up and bleeding and I was scared. I lay there unable to move because I knew that I couldn't make it home on my own. It was only then that my dad came out from behind a tree, helped me to my feet and dusted me off before showing me the way.

There are times when God won't feel present, but I wonder if it's not so much that God isn't there with us, but that we've decided to sprint in our own direction without worrying to bring God along. We get the feeling that we know what's best for us and rather than continue to remain by God's side to make sure the way we thought was best really is, we just leave Him in our dust.

Father, we want to be just like you, and it's sometimes hard to remember that even in our best attempts to be like you, there is no better ruler over our lives than you are. In the times when we try to lean on our own strength, our own understanding of the world, we pray for brokenness so that you might be restored to the throne we often try to sit in ourselves. Make us more like you but Lord, we glorify you for who you are, the King of our lives. Help us along the way to know your presence, never let your voice part from our ears. Amen.

Why TobyMac Ruined Christian Music For Me (and why I need his forgiveness)

I'm a dreamer, always have been. I've had fleeting dreams probably since the day I was born that have ranged from police officer, to baseball player, to garbage man (hey, tell me that it wouldn't be awesome riding on the back of a truck all day and I'll call you a liar). I've dreamt of going certain places, from the coastal trails of Cinque Terra, Italy or mountain town of Gimmelwald, Switzerland to riding a bicycle across the United States.

I've missed the mark on more than I've achieved but it's because they were lacking substance for me personally. This isn't to say that being a police officer or garbage man or baseball player isn't a great dream (my friend Travis just recently joined the OKC police force and I couldn't be more proud of him) but a dream is nothing without being close to one's heart. You can't like something and consider it a dream. Liking something will leave you open to any number of excuses for not realizing something you wish for. Love on the other hand, if you have love for something, you'll stop at nothing to fulfill your dream.

I have very few lasting dreams, but to list the ones I know won't ever go away would be a very easy task so why not. In no particular order:

Husband, father, Christian.

That's it. Those are the only true dreams I have, and nothing could derail me from wanting to be those things, but a lot can disturb my efforts as it turns out, and often times that disturbance is myself.

To be a husband and a father, you must first be a boyfriend. I am fortunate enough to be boyfriend to the most incredible young woman I've ever met, and for three of her best years, she has remained patient with me and dealt with my stubbornness, and to be brutally honest, my immaturity.

There are a lot of ways I have fallen short of who she deserves me to be, but none more devastating than missing the mark on the third dream I listed, and while it pains me that for so long I have not only not been the strong leader and man of God that she fully deserves, it's that I didn't even realize it until recently.

What can I say, I'm a work in progress, and my personal progress is slow developing. I'm only coming to understand now that being a man is much about sacrificing your own sinful desire to put yourself ahead of others. The truth of the matter is that for awhile now I've tried serving two masters, myself and God, but that doesn't work. You truly cannot serve two at the same time. One will always win out over the other, and unfortunately I must confess that I often put my plans ahead of God's.

But this shouldn't really surprise me. I've shut God out of my life in many ways, not let Him permeate my life like I used to. Blame it on losing some of the wonder I once had by majoring in theology, blame it on wanting to be a contrarian, blame it on whatever, but the blame falls on me in the end and me alone. Just as a way of illustrating why I've struggled, and done entirely tongue-in-cheek, I'm going to blame it on TobyMac today.

See Toby is who ruined Christian music for me, and not for the reasons some people say they turn their backs on it, but because when I was still a teen I had the chance to meet him, a hero of mine at the time, out back of an outdoor concert in Ohio. I noticed him sitting in a minivan and so I tapped on the window, excited to talk to the guy who I had come to think was as cool as the other side of the pillow (I rocked out to Momentum more times than I can count). But I was disappointed because the man I thought I would meet turned out to not have a care in the world to talk to me. He blew me off and in that moment a part of me stopped thinking Christian musicians were anything different than mainstream ones.

My argument was flawed of course and for the past 10 years I've held a grudge with a person who A.) I'm sure doesn't remember me; B.) probably was just having a bad day; and C.) is no more imperfect than myself or anyone else.

We're flawed people, broken people, us Christ followers. It's why we'll always be followers, never catching up to the standard of Christ, never knowing how to step beyond an impossible to surpass standard of what love is, always just a tad behind the standard.

Last week I reconnected with Christian music, but more importantly, I reconnected to the God of my high school years. I remembered what it was like to just talk to God like another friend in the room, to not worry about what other people thought or whether I was holding to theologically accepted beliefs and ideologies. When did I stop holding the belief that we can never fully understand God? I'm not sure, but I'm glad to get back to it.

And so I grow, not because I'm anyone worth praise, but because in my brokenness and desire to continue moving toward my dreams, God took over and overcame my foolish pride and stubbornness as only He could.