Joni Eareckson Tada: Sharing Hope

Guest (Female): Welcome to Joni Eareckson Tada: Sharing Hope. There's one thing Joni always says she wouldn't trade for the world.

Joni Eareckson Tada: I wouldn't exchange it, I wouldn't give it up. I'm talking about God's will for my life, and that obviously includes this wheelchair. To me, it is amazing how when we accept—I mean, when we really embrace the will of God, wheelchair and all, it is amazing how everything changes.

In fact, it's very much like the parable of the hidden treasure in Matthew chapter 13, verse 44. Jesus tells us there that, "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. In his joy, the man went and sold everything he had and bought that field." Now, the key point in that verse is the word bought. We must buy the field.

Elisabeth Elliot, the great missionary who knew a lot about embracing God's will for her life, explained that the field God wants us to sell everything in order to buy is hardly ever a beautiful sun-drenched meadow laced with wildflowers. Funny, isn't it? When we think of the treasure that God has in place for us, we assume that it's beautiful, pleasant, and even easy to obtain. We think the field should be lovely, attractive, something that everybody would love to buy. But it is rarely that way.

That which God wants us to embrace, even sell everything in order to call our own, that thing, that field, is usually bleak and empty. The field is more often an ugly sandlot with broken bottles and old tires, barren and scrubby and ugly. Most assume that the real estate value on it is zilch. Yet, it is the field God wants us to sell everything in order to possess.

And here's the catch, and it's why I would not exchange God's will for my life in this wheelchair for anything. Once you know that the bleak and empty, ugly field, that icky sandlot, contains a rich and wonderful treasure, the whole picture changes. As I said, everything changes. That empty, ugly scrap of land that everybody looks down on suddenly is brimming with possibilities, and we want to not only accept it but sell everything we have in order to buy it.

In my case, selling everything meant giving up self-pity, giving up resentment for a body that no longer worked. Selling everything meant leaving behind my questions and moving forward in faith. It meant investing hours I was forced to sit still in this wheelchair, investing those hours in God's word and in prayer. That's the pick and shovel needed in order to unearth the hidden treasure.

On the surface, the field I have sold everything in order to buy still looks bleak. People look at me in this wheelchair and all they see are paralyzed legs and hands that don't work. I don't think anyone else would want to buy the field that I own. Not many people want it. But to me, it's a beautiful field because in it, way down deep hidden underneath the surface, is the treasure, the priceless treasure of knowing Jesus better. It's as Matthew chapter 13 says: it is the kingdom of heaven. Oh, friend, what a wonderful parable this one about the field and the hidden treasure really is.

Guest (Male): And friend, all the other parables of Jesus contain wonderful truths as well. So why not make it your goal to spend some time in his parables this week? Go to joniradio.org, listen to this program again, and then let it inspire you to dig deep into God's word because time spent in God's word is time spent with God. And that is always time well spent.