Treasures

Sunken Treasure

The book of James says, “You do not have because you do not ask.” To illustrate this scripture, there’s a story about a little boy who had a dream of heaven. In the dream, God took the boy to a room. In the room were various types of material possessions like cars, houses, and other objects needed for daily life. Also in the room were things that seemed grotesque: eyeballs, legs, hands, and feet piled high in various corners. When the little boy asked God what it all meant, God replied, “These are answers to prayers never prayed.”

Even if this story is fictional, it still carries a profound message. The moral of this story is scripturally accurate. People do not possess many of the things God intends for their lives for one simple reason: they have never asked.

Like sunken treasure littering the bottom of the sea, God’s responses to unprayed prayers are left undiscovered and lost. What about you? Is some of the treasure of your life resting with the Spanish galleons deep below your life’s surface and waiting for the salvage work of prayer to excavate them? Are you perhaps missing out on what God intends for your life because you have never asked?

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Do not be anxious about your life…

Jesus said that our one handful should be focused on heavenly treasures instead of earthly ones. There is no need to store up earthly treasures. The better choice is to not worry because God will always meet our needs as long as we seek Him.

Matthew 6

19“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.22“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, 23but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! 24“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. 25“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’32For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 34“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.