Buying the Field

"The Kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field."

Matthew 13:44

This verse has been rattling around in my brain the last few weeks as I reflected on the last year for our family and looked ahead to the next year. As I have prayed and asked the Lord for vision, this is what keeps popping up. 

So I think maybe this year is about buying the field. 

I have been thinking a lot about the cost of following Jesus on my life, my kids, my family. I have been counting the cost of the Kingdom. I think this year, more than any other year, the cost has become very real to me. We have had to truly consider and sacrifice things we thought were important, the things we thought we needed and the things we thought we valued. We have had to lay down our lives and follow this call. It has been painful and uncomfortable and stretching. This year more than any other year I think Jesus has become very real to me.

Before I didn't really believe that the Kingdom could come in my minivan, at my dining room table, in my time, in my finances, in my life. But that's because I never made space for it to come. I never let God have it to do what He pleased with it. But once I started, I couldn't stop. I handed Him a piece and He transformed it from mundane, plain, and ugly to a thing of beauty. I handed Him another piece and He cleaned it up and multiplied it. I handed Him my Saturday and He filled it with picnics and baby showers with these precious mamas and their babies. I handed Him my minivan and my gas budget (for real) and He filled it to bursting with life and friendship and laughter and the CUTEST babies ever. I handed Him my plans and my spare room and He grew people into my family in a way I could never imagine, but now I couldn't imagine my family without them. I handed Him my heart and He transformed it so I could love Him better and filled it with a deeper love for his people. 

At the end of my life, I probably won't have aged beautifully, I probably won't get to retire early, or travel the world. My kids will probably not have new clothes or the finest education. But maybe I will have the field. See, the cost of the Kingdom is that my kids spend a lot of time in their car seats while I shuttle people around to appointments and school. They share me and they share their stuff. That I don't get a lot of ME time. That my husband and I don't hardly have date nights. Our house is always messy. There is always too much month left over at the end of the paycheck. 

But we have the field. And we are selling everything else.