ODJ: It Hides a Well

June 5, 2018 

READ: Luke 12:13-23 

The purses of heaven never get old or develop holes (v.33).

In Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s splendid story The Little Prince, a lone pilot crashed in the Sahara. He had no water—only a curious boy from another planet to keep him company. As the man tried desperately to repair his plane, the little prince pestered him with random questions and seemingly idle chatter. The pilot’s exasperation grew until he cried out, “I’m very busy with matters of consequence!”

The boy was stunned. “Matters of consequence!” he said. “You talk just like the grown-ups!”

Grown-ups obsess over ‘important’ details like adding up numbers and writing books and being in control. The little prince, however, cared for things like a sheep and sunsets and a rose. Because what’s important and beautiful, the prince knew, is in those details. Even after the two had been trudging across the desert sands for hours, the boy said, “What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.”

Jesus noticed the truly important in the smallest of details, and He troubled His hearers with perplexing responses to their ‘important’ questions and demands. When a man told Jesus, “Please tell my brother to divide our father’s estate with me,” He replied, “Friend, who made me a judge over you to decide such things as that?” (Luke 12:13-14). Then Jesus deftly turned the moment into a teachable point about our tendency towards greed, closing with these words: “A person is a fool to store up earthly wealth but not have a rich relationship with God” (v.21).

How often we obsess over the crisis of the moment! Meanwhile, we miss the eternally valuable and the truly beautiful. Instead of trying to repair a wrecked plane in the desert, may we seek and find the Water of Life we so need.

—Tim Gustafson

365-day plan: John 1:1-18

MORE
Read Colossians 1:15-20 for more on what Scripture says truly matters. 
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Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote, “What is most important is invisible.” Do you agree? What light does Romans 1:20 and Colossians 1:15 shed on this?