Happy, happy, happy weekend!
Do you sometimes feel at the end of your rope? Looking for a fresh start — or wishing for a do-over?
Let’s embrace something new together.
We’re adding a special touch to our weekly Multivitamins – think of them as Supplements for the Soul. In this space each week, we’ll delve into small yet impactful insights and mental models that embody perseverance, renewal, growth, and redemption. Together, we’ll learn and rejuvenate, preparing to meet the upcoming week with renewed hope and peace.
And that’s not all – we’re bringing you some real, down in the bones JOY to celebrate today! Links & stories this week 100% guaranteed to make you smile a mile wide & believe like crazy in a Good God redeeming everything — and that there’s love everywhere & for ((you))!
Serving up only the Good Stuff for you right here:
some winter sweetness to start off your weekend…
What a birthday surprise – 40 years later!!
Supplements for the Soul – Pareto vs Parables
Radical Prioritization
You take a shortcut through an overgrown field. The heat is oppressive, and it’s a dead silent day other than the noisy insects. You keep watching your feet so you don’t step in a badger hole or get bitten by a sunning snake.
Despite your eye’s being so intently focused on where you were walking, you don’t even see it — you more hear it as your foot hits it, that unmistakable chink of metal on metal.
Curiosity gets the better of you, and you spread apart the weeds looking for what made the noise — and then ignoring the heat you start to dig furiously in the dirt with your hands.
Treasure. More than you’ve ever seen in your life. Wealth beyond anything you could have imagined.
Quickly you cover everything with dirt, and as the sun sets, you trudge home. So much for saving time with a short cut.
In the morning, you find out who owns the field, and ask the owner what he would take for the property. It’s a lot more than it should be for such a derelict, weedy, unproductive piece of ground — but it’s nothing compared what that land hides. The price is also much more than you have.
You go home quickly, and put a “for sale” sign on the front lawn. You drag out furniture and everything you own. It’s an impromptu “everything-must-go” garage sale that includes the house.
By the end of day…
Everything. Is. Gone.
Except for…just enough money to buy the land.
And you buy it, and it’s yours — but more importantly, the treasure is yours.
This is what Christ says the Kingdom of Heaven is like. A found treasure that is so great, you will trade absolutely everything to get it.
This is Christ’s parable of the Treasure found in the field.
Now let us skip forward in history 1900 years to an Italian economist named Vilfredo Pareto.
In the early 20th century, Pareto, made the observation that approximately 80% of Italy’s land was concentrated in the hands of just 20% of the population; he went on to observe this same 80/20 dynamic in other countries and in other disciplines. This principle has since permeated many various fields, from economics to health to public policy to business, illustrating that about 80% of all outcomes result from 20% of efforts and causes.
This is the Pareto distribution, or the 80/20 rule.
Applied to faith — one would initially wonder, what 20% of being a Christ follower yields the majority of the impact? What can or should we pair down to make our faith journey more impactful?
But that is wrong.
The Parable of the treasure in the field would challenge us to think radically differently. How can we settle for partial devotion when Christ demands our entirety? The man did not sell the most effective or productive or expensive 20% of his belongings…he sold everything.
It’s a radical truth: For a Christian, prioritizing the kingdom of God is a 100% all in endeavour.
It is not a 20/80 optimization. Being 100% all in comes at the cost of looking irrational or extreme to secular society. This radical prioritization is our calling, where the joy of the kingdom overpowers any grasp on worldly wisdom.
True discipleship means being willing to give up the 100% – our everything – for the 10,000%.
We will appear utterly crazy to the world.
Living out this parable today will mean recognizing that the greatest treasure isn’t found in material wealth or societal approval but in the transformative power of the Gospel. It’s a call to not just allocate an “impactful” 20% portion of our resources to God but to invest our entire being – and everything we possess – into His kingdom.
Yes, the cost is everything, but the reward is incomparable – and that more than justifies crazy, other-worldly, radical prioritization.
It’s about living in a way that constantly says:
“I have found the treasure, and everything else is secondary.”
“I’m all in.”
– written by Caleb Voskamp
A joyful reminder of how amazing His creation is!
On The Book Stack at The Farm
Read Kate Bowler’s recent guest post:
How to Live in the Beautiful & Terrible
Read John Mark Comer’s recent guest post:
Why “Wasting” Time with God is what Our Hearts Need Most
… and as we move toward Valentine’s Day and the season of hearts…
And as a mama of a little girl who will one day need a heart transplant — this.
No greater gift than to give someone your heart 
#BeTheGift
Round up of What’s HAppening aRound the Farm
In which Levi works on his house…
And Aurora experiments with digital painting…
Malakai has a photoshoot with his puppies…
And Melba makes a bouquet of flowers!
A virtual little art gallery tour in New York
Some of these Valentine themed art pieces at the MET are just the cutest.
How many lives he had touched!
(tearing up here)
Looking for the perfect little children’s gift
Or little reminder of Jesus’ Love?
Because we all need a Brave Song:
The simplest of truths, told through the sweetest of songs, can change the world.
Which is exactly the refrain of our very first children’s book Your Brave Song!
We all need a hope song,
a courage song,
a song that assures that our our bravery doesn’t come from inside of us,
it comes from knowing you’re loved by the One who created love and is Love Himself.
Your Brave Song includes:
❤ A page to attach your child’s picture that makes this a uniquely personalized kids’ book
❤ Exquisite hand painted, acrylic artwork by illustrator Amy Grimes
❤ Inspirational prose about finding your security and identity in Christ
❤ A rhyming song that kids can memorize easily so that they can return to its truth every day
Have God’s Song ABOUT YOU
on Repeat in your heart.
The smiles of getting to swim in the sea… one more time!
this one on repeat over here!
“Cause He made a way
When troubles comes
He’ll be our fortress
We know that those who place their hope
in Him will not be ashamed”
[from our Facebook community – join us?]
…at the end of the week, and you can look up at the calendar today and exhale:
It’s okay to feel bone tired —
you have One who gives His bone and His body for you and beckoned: Come Rest.
It’s okay to feel disillusioned —
you have One who destroys cheap illusions of perfection and offers you His.
It’s okay to feel done —
you have One who listens to the last nail be driven in
and proclaims all the hellish things finished.
It’s okay to feel battered and bruised —
you have One who storms your battles,
takes back everything that needs a comeback,
and proves His side won.
It’s okay to not feel okay —
because you have One — who made you His one.
You have One who left the clamor of the 99,
to find you, remind you, remake you, rename you, release you.
You have One who is more ready to forgive what you’ve done,
than you are to forget, One who is more ready to give you grace, than you are to give up,
One who is more than ready to always stand with you,
than you are to run.
One who is a greater lover, rescuer, saviour, friend—
than you have ever imagined Him to be even when your love for Him is most on fire.
Today, these worries, this world, may leave you feeling a bit depressed —
but you have a God who is obsessed with you.
It’s beautiful how that goes:
Whatever the story is today — it’s okay.
Because we know the ending —
and how it will be the beginning of the truest happily ever after.
Whatever the story is today — it’s okay.
Because the Writer of the story has written Himself
into the hardest places of yours and is softening the edges of
everything with redeeming grace.
That’s all for this weekend, friends.
Go slow. Be God-struck. Grant grace. Live Truth.
Give Thanks. Love well. Re – joy, re- joy, ‘re- joys’ again
Share Whatever Is Good.
