The Oil Well Beneath the Farm
Story★★★★Some years ago there emigrated from North Carolina to Oklahoma in the United States of America a man and a woman who bought a little farm and settled on it. They found it pretty heavy going. The soil was not very productive. And the yield at harvest time hardly justified the labour that they had expended upon it.
Then one day some business men came along and asked the good woman of the house for a drink of water from her well. Of course she gave it them, as anyone would have done in the circumstances. But she was rather surprised to find one of them put some of it in a bottle before they went away.
And it was not till much later when they came back and made a miserable offer for the farm, and she and her husband had gladly accepted the money, that she found there was a rich oil-well beneath the ground of the farm where they had spent the best years of their lives. It is often thus, friend, I fear, that many people, even Christian people, live their lives. They live on the surface. They never penetrate below.
They are utterly ignorant of the good things which God has given them richly to enjoy. They have not learned the precious truth which is written in Holy Writ for our learning: “The word is nigh thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart.”
The point
Farmers emigrated to Oklahoma with poor yields until oil was discovered beneath their land. They lived on the surface, ignorant of the riches below. A parable about overlooking spiritual resources available to Christians.