The X and the Treasure

There is a story that exists in almost every culture on earth. It is the story of a map, a mark, and a treasure buried beneath the ground. The map is dismissed as myth, the mark is ignored or defaced, and the treasure waits in silence for the one person patient enough to dig. I have come to see truth the same way.

Every time I speak what I know to be true, every time I write or post or respond in good faith to mockery, it feels as if I am leaving an X on the ground. The X does not force anyone to dig. It does not prove what lies beneath. It only points. Yet it still matters that the mark is there.

The Nature Of The X

An X is simple. It is not persuasive or loud. It does not glow or shout its value to those passing by. It only sits quietly, waiting to be noticed. To the proud or careless, it seems foolish. Why carve a mark on asphalt? Why draw attention to something that most will never believe is there? The answer is because the X is not meant for the crowd. It is meant for the one who will look at it twice.

When I write something that defends truth, when I answer dishonesty with reason, or when I choose to remain calm in a sea of mockery, I am marking another X. I am not writing for the thousands who laugh. I am writing for the one who will pause. The one who is tired of noise. The one who suspects that maybe the surface is not the whole story.

The Purpose Of The Mark

The X exists to make a choice possible. Without it, no one even knows where to dig. It is not my job to force hands to the shovel. It is my job to make sure the ground is marked where truth lies beneath it. God does the rest.

In a culture that thrives on ridicule and instant gratification, every act of patience becomes radical. To leave an X in a place full of mockers is to defy the crowd’s logic that only what is seen is real. It is to declare by action that something deeper exists, that meaning can still be found if one is willing to look for it.

The Reaction Of The Crowd

The crowd does what the crowd always does. They point at the mark and laugh. They call it superstition, delusion, or wasted time. They mock the one who drew it. They demand evidence without ever testing the ground themselves.

In that moment, they believe they have won. Yet they prove the very blindness the X exposes. The surface is all they see. They cannot imagine that treasure could be buried beneath concrete. They cannot conceive that the Creator of logic and reason could hide truth beneath layers of pride and preconception.

They think their laughter makes them free. In reality, it binds them to the surface.

The One Who Digs

Somewhere, someone will see the mark and feel something stir inside. Curiosity, humility, maybe even hunger. That person will not mock. They will question. They will wonder if perhaps the one who left the X saw something they missed.

Digging is hard. It means tearing through the layers that society has paved over truth. It means effort, vulnerability, and patience. It means being willing to look foolish to those who still stand on the surface. But the moment the shovel strikes something solid, everything changes.

The treasure is not gold or jewels. It is understanding. It is the realization that the mark was not foolish after all. It was faithfulness.

The Treasure Itself

What lies beneath the X is not mine. It is truth itself. It is the reality that logic, morality, and existence are not random but anchored in the eternal mind of God. It is the understanding that the laws of reason cannot exist apart from the Lawgiver.

Those who mock the X see faith as weakness. Yet faith is the courage to believe that what cannot be seen is still real. It is the willingness to dig when others only criticize the ground. It is the conviction that truth is worth the effort, even when surrounded by cynicism.

Why I Keep Marking The Ground

There are days when the mockery is loud. When sarcasm fills every comment thread. When people who claim to value reason use it only as a weapon to belittle. On those days it would be easier to stay silent, to stop marking, to let the surface remain untouched.

But silence helps no one. Every X I draw is one more chance for someone to find what I once found. I was not born knowing the treasure was there. Someone else marked it before me. Someone else stood in ridicule and left their evidence behind.

Now it is my turn.

The Irony Of The Mocker

What the mocker never sees is that their very ridicule confirms the truth they reject. When they use logic to deny the Author of logic, they prove His necessity. When they rely on order to claim that creation is chaos, they reveal the order they cannot escape. When they demand evidence while refusing to examine the evidence before them, they show that the problem is not the absence of truth but the absence of humility.

They may think they are destroying the X, but all they are doing is drawing more attention to it. Their anger becomes the neon sign above what they claim does not exist.

The Moral Of The Story

Truth does not vanish because it is unpopular. God’s reality does not shrink because people laugh. The treasure remains where it has always been. The mark only reminds the seeker where to look.

When I use reason to answer hostility, when I refuse to trade insult for insult, I am not doing it for those who mock. I am doing it for those who will one day remember the conversation and dig for themselves. They will see that patience and faith were not weakness but strength.

The Calling to Leave The Mark

Every person who believes in truth has this same calling. To leave the mark. To stand in the storm without bending. To let character speak louder than ridicule. To remind the world that meaning still exists even when it is buried deep.

You do not need to defend the treasure forever. You only need to make sure that when someone is ready to search, they know where to start.

The X is not the goal. The digging is not the reward. The treasure is God Himself, the very source of all truth, reason, and moral order.

The Reward Of Faithfulness

There will always be more asphalt, more concrete, more noise. But one day the ground will crack. Someone will dig where you marked. They will uncover what you already knew. And in that moment, your patience will have mattered more than every argument, every insult, and every hour spent being misunderstood.

That is why I keep leaving truth where others refuse to dig. Because truth is treasure. Because one day, someone will want to find it.