You love to travel through the countryside and have ridden this road many times. But today, the weather is just one of those perfect days. A few clouds in the sky, the warm glow of the late afternoon sun and not a breath of wind, so you slow down a little to take in the view longer. The area you are ridding through is barren semi desert land and as you meander though this landscape you notice a tree that seems different. This tree has more greenery on it than any of the others you have seen. You decide to stop and take a further look. Your wife and kids are with you in the vehicle and while you take a walk to the tree, they are having a good stretch and soaking up the view.
As you approach the tree you notice that the ground around the tree is different. It is not dry like the rest of the land, it is moist and you realise that below this tree is living stream of underground water that somehow has gone unnoticed. You run back to your wife and kids and say to them that you need to speak to the farmer who owns the land. You have discovered something special and you want to be a part of it. So, you start to look for the nearest farm road and travel along it to find a farm house nestled between a rocky outcrop.
As you approach the house, an older man is sitting on the balcony reading a book. You introduce yourself and make an inquiry regarding the area where you saw the tree and the man says that it is his land. So you ask if you are able to buy the land from him. As you and the man discuss this, you discover that he has no children to inherit the land from him. He is looking at retiring from the farm and moving to the town nearby. But when he names his price, you realise that it is a huge ask. It is going to take some time to get the funds together and you ask the man to please not to sell the farm to anyone else so that you can buy this land from him.
Your heart grows stronger and you know deep inside your soul that this land must be acquired at all costs. You, your wife and your children will have to give up everything you have to buy this land. This is no easy thing to do, but you are convinced that it must be done. You and your wife need to agree that as a family you are going to do this together and as you travel back home you are praying, hoping that somehow this will happen. The next day at work you start to make inquiries about pension fund payouts, selling your home, moving schools for the children and how much income you will have when both you and your wife leave your place of work.
Once you have all the details, you call the man on the farm and discuss the terms, conditions, title deeds and a timeline for acquiring the land. An agreement is made and you and your family relocate to this barren land with your heart pounding in your chest and an unexplainable hope that something big is about to happen. After settling in on the land and getting children into a new school, you go to the tree in the middle of nowhere and start to dig a little. The more you dig the more muddy the soil becomes. You hire some machinery to go deeper and you hit an underground water vein. Samples of the water are taken and sent for testing and the results come back to say that this is pure, clean, fresh water. And so plans are made to irrigate the land for a farming project and a bottling plant that would supply the purest of waters from this living stream.
In Matthew 13:44 we read:
“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.” (NIV)
Jesus is the Living Water and we need to pursue Him with the same enthusiasm and zeal that we would as securing a treasure in a field. The Kingdom of Heaven is to be sought after with all we have. Yes, sacrifices are to be made, time and effort are to be put aside. The rewards of the Kingdom of Heaven and to be nourished by the Living Water, are far greater when we pursue them than if we are idle in our relationship with Jesus. There is abundance in the pursuit.