Treasure

OK I’m a bit on the sad side sometimes!

I admit it, I love archaeology!

I have a Time Team addiction, Tony Robinson and all that.

If God had not called me into ministry, I would have definitely been an archaeologist!

Last week dawn and I were in London for our appraisal. One of the mornings we decided to go for a coffee. We walked for about a mile from the conference centre where we were staying, and found a fantastic coffee shop and loaded ourselves with skinny cappuccino’s that were so deliciously gorgeous I could have drank ten cups!

While we were walking to find the coffee place we came upon some work being done to a wall that separated the pavement from somebody’s front garden. The pavement was sealed off and we had to walk around. The workmen had dismantled the very old bricks and piled them up ready for rebuilding. The wall, which was a high wall about six feet high, had been almost pushed over by the earth of the front garden that was raised to about three feet. So where the wall had been dismantled all you could see was a three foot high block of brown earth.

I am always fascinated by the earth.

This is really how sad I am, I get excited by the thought of what lies beneath the ground surface.

Naturally my eyes were drawn to the three foot high block of earth.

I could see bits of old pottery, old wood, and a bit of metal.

How breathtakingly exciting that is! (Not, I almost hear you say!)

Treasures buried for who knows how long.

That’s archaeology!

The trouble is because I didn’t study archaeology I haven’t got a clue what these bits of treasure were telling me!

Dawn thinks I’m mad!

I got so excited over a few bits of broken pot!

I think secretly she doesn’t know which pot is the most cracked! Me or the stuff in the ground!
After I’d checked out the bit of old ground, a scripture hit me.

It’s a scripture that has kind of protected my ministry as someone gave it me the day I became a Salvation Army officer and it has been in my head at the best and worst of times.

Isaiah 45: 1-3: This is what the Lord says to His anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of to subdue nations before him and to strip kings of their armour, to open doors before him so that gates will not be shut. I will go before you and will level the mountains; I will break down gates of bronze and cut through bars of iron. I will give you hidden treasures, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel, who summons you by name.

I couldn’t get that piece of earth out of my head, and in my mind’s eye I could see that there was hidden treasure buried in the ground, concealed for years.

I began to filter through in my head some of the bad times I’ve experienced in my life.

We all go through them sometimes.

I remember early on in my ministry I struggled with some of the religious rubbish that the church has constructed over the centuries that frankly has prevented people from getting close to God or crushed people’s dreams and visions. After one particular struggle I remember a wise friend of mine in Liverpool giving me a piece of advice that has helped me so much. He said Gary whatever the situation you have to take the treasure out of it.

In other words there is always treasure hidden in every situation, things that can change your thinking and your actions, things that you can build on.

Sometimes in life there seems to be a lot of dirt and not much treasure.

But you know guys it is there.

They reckon that large parts of the UK are hiding treasures from the past just waiting to be discovered.

Here is God through Isaiah promising us that he will give us hidden treasures, riches stored in secret places.

What an amazingly spectacular promise that is.

Whatever situation you are in right now, especially if you can’t see your way through the dirt of something then know this, in that dirt there is treasure waiting to be discovered.

Treasures that can add to our lives, that can make us better people.

But you have to dig for treasure.

And digging is hard work
.
However hard the ground may seem, that situation you’re in, if you look beyond the dirt, work hard to look beyond it, you will find the treasure that God has for you.

And it’s there.

Because God promises us it is.

Blessings