Three Things:

First off, in case you missed the link to my son’s Theology In His Sleep videos on YouTube, the site address is at http://www.youtube.com/user/dzcowart . I get a real kick out of it.

I’m proud of him.

Second, I wasted four hours Thursday.

In the morning I received two e-mails, both long and strongly worded, attacking me and something I wrote recently.

That both hurt and raised my hackles.

Immediately I jumped in and wrote a reply defending myself and what I’d written.

I took a firm stand and declared, “What I have written, I have written”.

Didn’t somebody in the Bible say that?

Like him, I did not want to back down.

My defense appeared powerful and witty in my own eyes. I worked writing this thing for hours, then I sat down to smoke a pipe and gloat over my clever response before I posted it online.

As I puffed my pipe, a phrase of Scripture popped into my mind—“He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth”.

Yes, when accused, the Lord Jesus offered no defense.

St. Peter even said, “Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously: Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree”.

These thoughts brought me up short.

Why was I so riled and so quick to jump to defend and justify myself?

Don’t I have a Defender who’s a little better at the job than I am?

So what if someone thinks ill of me? So long as I’m accepted in the Beloved, what does it matter what anyone else thinks of me?

I’m very glad I did not post that witty stuff I wrote. I would have regretted it. Now, all I have to regret is the time I spent writing a reply, a reply which said, in all Christian charity, “Tough Tit”.

Thus, my lesson for today was not how to defend myself, but why not to.

Third thing—Now for the fun stuff!—Gold! Lots of Gold!

That photo shows only a small sample of a gold treasure from Anglo-Saxon days uncovered in Staffordshire recently.

Using his metal detector in a field near his home, Mr. Terry Herbert, discovered over 1,345 gold items dating back more than 1,300 years.

His find is told about in two articles with photographs in yesterday’s London Daily News at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1215723/Staffordshire-hoard-Amateur-treasure-hunter-finds-Britains-biggest-haul-Anglo-Saxon-gold.html

This is the largest hoard of gold items ever discovered in Great Britain. Experts have not placed a cash value on all of it yet, they say it could take years to evaluate the collection, but it’s worth millions.

The Mail says, “Many of the items in the hoard are warfare paraphernalia inlaid with precious stones, including sword pommel caps and hilt plates”

Sixth Century artisans inscribed a Latin Bible verse on this gold fixture from a sword scabbard; it says, “Rise up, O Lord, and may Thy enemies be dispersed and those who hate Thee be driven from Thy Face”.

To me, an amazing thing about this find is how the golden artifacts lie buried so close to the surface:

Wow! Think of it! An incredible treasure just below the surface. When you hear your metal detector beep an alert, all you have to do is scratch the surface, and there you see the most valuable thing you’ve ever found in your life!

Jesus said, “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field”.

Humm… Of course Jesus said that before metal detectors were invented.

But, still I wonder…

In ancient times someone folded up this jeweled gold cross—perhaps because they did not like what it stands for, or perhaps to make it small enough to fit into a leather bag.

The Mail says, “The hoard is currently being held in secure storage at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery but a selection of items are to be displayed at the museum from tomorrow until October 13”.

I used to have a cheap metal detector, one step removed from a toy. It beeped whenever it passed over anything metal. I took it out in my yard… Beep. Beep. Beep. I found a coin from Bahrain! How did a coin from that far country end up buried in the sand of my back yard, I’ll never know.

Beep. Beep. Beep. I found my yard is full of roofing nails from old construction, bottle caps, tab tops, stuff like that just under the surface. I was disappointed so often, I began to ignore the beeps.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Do I believe that alert? Is that a real treasure or just the metal spring from a lost clothes pin? Or is this beep just a false reading?

The only way to find out is to scratch the surface.

The kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure buried in a field…

Every once in a while the Holy Spirit says Beep, Beep, Beep to the human heart. We hear His alert and we decide whether or not to believe His call or to disregard it. We chose whether or not to investigate what’s just beneath the surface.

Again and again and again, He says, “Beep. Beep. Beep”.

“What do you mean sell all that I have!”

That’s crazy.

What’s God trying to pull here?

Beep. Beep. Beep.