Treasures in Heaven

Leonard Bernstein once said to achieve great things, two things are need ed: some sort of a plan, and not quite enough time. Well we had some sort of a plan, and definitely not enough time—so we jumped head first into Vacation Bible School. Our theme this year was Treasures in Heaven. And while singing along to the radio in the tractor one afternoon, the chorus of Proud Mary morphed from “rollin' down a river,” to “searchin' for God's treasure.” Later sitting in front of a blank screen wracking my brain for verses while the clock ticked frantically past, my dad happened by. “It shouldn't take that long to write VBS lyrics,” he said. “It only took Paul McCartney 30 minutes to write Yesterday!” Well, I'm no McCartney, and the song was no Yesterday, but it was satisfying to hear the kids sing the lyrics:  Left a good job in the city. Searchin' for disciples ev'ry night and day. That is until I lost, through an angel my vision. And I went from Saul to Paul, Amen Big prayers keep on formin'. God's power keeps transformin'. Searchin', Searchin', Paul found his treasure Grew up doing chores in the temple. Did a lot of errands for Eli the priest. But one night he called me, over and over. he finally said to listen for it's God who speaks. ...Samu'l found his treasure Watched a lot of sheep as a small lad. Chased off lions and defeated a bear. but I never dreamed I'd fight a philistine giant. 'Til I heard Goliath blaspheme God and swear. ...David found his treasure If you search your heart for treasure. Bet you're gonna find some talents of gold. You don't have to worry, just search the scriptures daily. God's chosen you, just like the men of old. The song may not have not have come together as fast as McCartney's, but our gold mining camp did. The Sunday before VBS was to start, we hauled in a trailer load of rough cut lumber, and with the help of a friend, we built a functional water flume, pool, and mine shaft—which we used to pan for gold, and scuba dive for treasure. We had spent the weeks leading up to VBS cutting out boards for the kids' treasure chest craft, and about the moment we felt like our “sort of plan” was coming together, crazy happened. One of our momma ducks was  killed leaving me 6 newly hatched ducklings—which ended up in our bathtub. Then my youngest found a baby chick with a with ered leg, that couldn't even lift his own head up. So Gimpy had to have extra care also. We can't forget the two bummer lambs that are still fed 3 times a day... The crazy kept happening. The nights were so short a couple of times that we were watching the sun come up before we'd made it to bed. Ask any leader—VBS is always intense., but throw it in the middle of July with 2nd cutting of hay, watermelon harvest, and a family pet emergency—there were a couple nights hard tears were shed. Theodore Roosevelt once said “Nothing in the world is worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty.... I've never envied a human who led and easy life.” It sure wasn't easy—but worth it in the end—at least that's what we told ourselves repeatedly as we drove out of the church parking lot at 10 p.m.—not for home, but out to the field to bale hay. I've heard that time is either invested or spent. Time “in vested” in activities compounds and grows; time “spent” leads to no tangible outcomes. I'm not sure if we achieved something great, as Leonard Bernstein suggested with a “sort of plan and not enough time,” but I do feel we invested in the “treasures” of our future leaders.