Looking Deep Within

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.  Matthew 6:19-21

This is another one of those passages that is so much more than good advice.  I think about the things I treasure:  my family, my health, watching a good movie with my family, a bowl of ice cream, my job...and truly those are things that warm the cockles of my heart.  Are any of those things necessarily bad?  I don't think so.  I don't think Jesus is trying to suggest that we need to pray and read the Bible while volunteering to feed the hungry twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.  We have sometimes made those activities synonymous with God.  Or perhaps more to the point, we compartmentalize.  Those are the things we do to connect with God...what we do on Friday night, well let's not get too personal here.

Paul Tillich once wrote that no one is really an atheist, everyone has something or someone at the center of his/her heart.  Maybe it is fame or fortune or family or that new car I just test drove.  Tillich was picking up on Jesus, that where are treasure is...there our heart is...and where our heart is...is where God longs to be.  I don't think it has to be either/or.  God is big enough to allow space for others.  I can engage God while talking with my family.  I can hear God as I run down the road.  God is interested in our whole life.  But I also realize that somethings are fleeting and fading (or that moth and rust can consume).  Which is why, we need to embrace the present moment for the treasure it is.  

During this season of Lent, what are you treasuring right now?  What brings you joy?  What is challenging you in a good way?  Where are you letting go of what once was a treasure?  That last one is a more difficult question.  I often find it difficult to see that life has changed and so the way our still speaking and creating God is changing too through the seasons of our life.  I pray in this final full week before Holy Week, you will ponder the treasures in your life.  I pray you will notice God.  And that you will treasure these words, holding fast to God and not just the things in our life.

Blessings and peace ~