Once upon a time, a father lived with his beautiful daughter. Many young men wanted to marry the young lady. Before deciding who would marry his daughter, the father required each suitor to work for him to test his character and prove his patience, endurance and abilities. The father was very demanding of the young men and enriched himself with their labor. He worked them like dogs, sending them to hunt in the forest and fish long hours. If they didn’t catch enough game or fish, the father would instruct his wife not to feed them. One by one, the young men became impatient and angry and gave up.

One day, a particularly smart young man came to try for the daughter’s hand. When it was evening and the father and mother retired to their house, the young man sat under the house and listened to their conversation. “Where will you take the young man tomorrow?” asked the mother.

“I will take him to the lake to go fishing,” answered the father. “If he doesn’t catch any fish, don’t give him any rice to eat.”

Quickly the young man ran to the fish market and bought a large number of live fish. Fashioning a cage for them, he hid them in the lake.

The next day, the father took the young man to the lake. When the father wasn’t looking, the young man waded over to the hidden cage and released the fish. All day long until it was dark, he caught fish after fish and brought them to the father until the old man was satisfied.

That night, the young man again sat under the house to listen. This time, he heard the father say he would take him hunting in the woods the next day.

Quickly the young man found a rabbit seller and bought many of them. Then he went into the woods and tied them to a tree.

The next day, when the father took the young man hunting, the young man ran ahead. Out of sight, untied the rabbits and brought them to the father.

The father was greatly impressed with the young man’s abilities, and he gave him his daughter’s hand in marriage.

We recently documented this traditional story of the wily suitor in our culture study of the Great River people. What does this story tell us about the cultural values and beliefs of our people? First of all, we see they highly value patience and endurance and frown on those who lose their temper or who give up quickly. Also, they measure intelligence by how effectively one can outsmart another. The most important thing is to maintain a façade of virtue.

Their value of appearances extends to objects as well. For example, when we were looking for a vehicle to buy, Philip mentioned that the mileage on one truck was awfully high for the asking price. The seller shrugged and told him it was no problem—he knew how to roll the odometer back! In other words, if things look good—if I look good—then everything’s okay. Do five ritual prayers a day. Don’t eat pork or drink alcohol. Don’t touch blood or dogs. Don’t wear fingernail polish. Always wear a head covering. Give money to the poor and fast a month a year. If you look good, you are good.

The religion of Jesus peels away our veneer of goodness and shows us our true, dirty hearts. All the merit-making activities in the world cannot clean our inner filthiness. Unlike the father in this story, God is not fooled. He sees through us to our deepest motives and most secret thoughts. There is only one way to satisfy our Heavenly Father and be in harmony with Him: Admit our guilt and our filthiness of heart. Admit we cannot change our hearts and we cannot do even one good thing on our own. Then we can accept the beautiful merits of Jesus’ blood—all His goodness—as our own. His clean heart becomes our clean heart. His life in us purifies and changes us.

This is what we long to share with the Great River people. We long for the day when they will choose to lay their burdens down at Jesus’ feet.

• Twitter