Be diligent and not complacent!

Matthew 13, 44-46

"God's kingdom is like a treasure hidden in a field for years and then accidently found by a trespasser. The finder is ecstatic-- what a find!-- and proceeds to sell everything he owns to raise money and buy that field. 45" Or, God's kingdom is like a jewel merchant on the hunt for excellent pearls. 46 Finding one that is flawless, he immediately sells everything and buys it.

Food for thought!

Jesus is again teaching. He has two lessons for us today.  The first, diligence in whatever we do pays. The man in the first parable found the precious thing, not so much by chance, as in his day's work; he did so when he was going about his daily business; he must have been going about his daily business with diligence and efficiency; he must have been digging deep, and not merely scraping the surface, in order to strike against the treasure. This means that in order to find joy and satisfaction, we must love what we do and must do what we love. So, do you love what you do for a living, and do you do it with love?

Diligence is many things. It is assiduousness, constancy, perseverance, endurance, fidelity, industriousness, insistence, laboriousness, persistence, staying power, stick-to-itiveness. Be diligent in your daily routine. Don't let the routine destroy your diligence.

In the second parable, there's another teaching. While the first man was digging the field as a daily routine, when he stumbled unaware on the treasure, the man in the second parable was actively searching for pearls. It means, this man was actively looking for something greater, something more. He was not complacent. Complacency means being self-proclaimed, self-satisfied, self-congratulating, self-content. So, Jesus is saying that we be not complacent with what we have achieved so far. There's much more we can be and do.

Jesus is saying, in other words, that we don't stop with our current achievements. Stopping means dying because when we die we stop living, we stop dreaming, we stop progressing. Don't die before you die. Live until you die, dream until you die, search until you die. Be like the man in the parable, keep walking, keep going for more, keep improving.

Jesus is saying in other words, that whatever we do, let's be and do our best. In order to achieve great things, do the small ordinary things extraordinarily well. Become the big fish by mastering the small pond. Succeed in the ordinary and you will qualify yourself for big ones. Be like the Olympians, before they went to the real games, they must perform very well at home. If you are good at home, you will be good elsewhere; if you fail at home, you'll most likely fail at the Olympics; bad managers or bad employers and employees are always bad spouses; before they fail at work, they fail at home.