Not long ago, I had the awesome privilege of interviewing Jentzen Franklin, who is a well-known pastor and author. He wrote a book called “Acres of Diamonds,” and in it, he tells an incredible story that seems almost too apocryphal to be true. It takes place in South Africa, where there lived a man who invested everything he had in a small estate. He bought a few acres, a modest cabin, some oxen, and a plow, and he intended to turn his little piece of earth into a profitable farm. Day after day, he worked to provide for his family, and night after night, he came in from the fields exhausted. The next week, a stranger walked by and saw him laboring hard under the hot sun, so he approached him and shared that people had recently discovered diamonds in India. Intrigued by the thought of not having to live by the sweat of his brow, the man tossed and turned as he tried to sleep that night, remembering what he had been told and pondering the thought of getting rich quick. Convinced that he had been let in on an important secret, he decided to sell all that he had and go. He rented a small home for his wife and children and promised them that when he returned, they would live like royalty. With that, he took off for India, where he searched high and low for diamonds, but found nothing. Then he traveled through the rest of Asia, and even to Europe, but never came across what he had been promised. Finally, totally broke, disheartened and at the end of his rope, he sat down by the bank of a river and wrote a suicide note that said, “There are no diamonds, anywhere.” Then he drowned himself in the water. Meanwhile, back at the old farm, the man who purchased his estate was busy plowing the fields and kept coming across strange black rocks that would get in his way as he tilled the soil. One day, he found one that was particularly large and interesting so he took it inside and put it on the mantle. Some time later, the local priest was visiting, and he pointed to the rock and said, “Do you know what that is? That’s a diamond in the rough!” It turns out that the farm was full of diamonds, and, unbeknownst to the owner, he was sitting on the largest diamond mine in the world! How sadly ironic that the treasure the original owner sought was right beneath his feet the entire time… he was simply too busy looking elsewhere to find it.

My friend, this tale is an important analogy for life. When you inherited the Kingdom of Heaven, you received more treasure than you can possibly conceive of. Far from what the devil wants you to believe, the blessings under your feet are the diamonds you most deeply desire; you just need eyes to behold them in their unpolished form. As you keep your hand to the plow and work the field the Lord’s given to you, He will reveal His radiance in the routine and His overwhelming goodness in the ordinary.