“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.” (Matthew 13:44)
It was an ordinary trip to the secondhand store, one like a hundred others she had taken over the years. And, as always, she looked for things her grandchildren might enjoy. A well-loved book from a popular children’s series grabbed her attention. She honestly couldn’t remember if her grandson already had this particular volume, but for the bargain price of fifty cents, she figured it was worth the risk.
Her grandson didn’t, in fact, have this particular book. Very few people did. As it turned out, the book she bought in that thrift store in rural Georgia that day was a very rare first edition—worth nearly sixty thousand dollars.
This is a true story. The woman who bought that book is a friend of ours. And that seemingly small transaction changed her life forever, releasing her from years of crushing debt. For a long while afterward, I couldn’t pass by a Goodwill store without being tempted to go in and look around. Who knows what I might find?
Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure, buried in a field” (Matthew 13:44). When we find it, we’re to sell everything we have to buy that field and take hold of the treasure. As Christians, we have been given this treasure, purchased for us at the cost of Jesus’ own blood. And it’s worth laying down everything we love, everything we are, and everything we selfishly try to hold onto. But if we’re not careful, we can forget just how valuable knowing Jesus really is. We can be like the person who donated that old book to a thrift store, never realizing what he had.
Pages of Joy 