What Do You Treasure?

I drove by the long line of parked cars on my street and slowly watched people leaving my neighbor’s estate sale carrying armfuls and truckloads of items out of her house - and a twinge of ache pierced my heart.

I knew my sweet neighbor, who every day, multiple times a day, would walk her little dog up and down our road. She was older, and I imagine she is entering a new season of life - perhaps one that looks very different from the one she has known for so many years. She always smiled and waved and was so pleasant to talk with. It wasn’t until I visited a local art gallery that I learned she was an artist. I had walked into the gallery one afternoon and there she was. I was surprised that we had bumped into each other in such a random place. That’s when she shared with me that she was an artist and walked me over to her display.

Now here she was, selling almost everything in her home, and I was sad. And it reminded me of my mother.

Four years after Dad passed away, my mother had to leave the home she had lived in for almost sixty years and move a small portion of her cherished belongings into a small room in a nursing facility. Everything she and Dad had built together, collected together, and shared together was narrowed down to a handful of items and placed in a “new home” that was unfamiliar to her, surrounded by people who were unfamiliar to her as well. It about did me in.

I’ll spare you all the details of how she came to find herself in that situation, but the point is this…the same thought that came to me when looking around my mother’s new living arrangements returned as I watched people cart off my neighbor’s furnishings and collectibles: we will take none of our possessions with us.

Everything We Leave Behind

One day, everything we have accumulated, everything we have carefully chosen, everything we thought we needed to keep, will belong to someone else - or it will simply be left behind.

Jesus said: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt. 6:21). That verse has taken on a much deeper meaning for me over the past few years. I moved three times in three years, and with each move, I felt like I was shedding a skin. The first was the most difficult, purging through years of memories and figuring out what to keep and what to give away. I thought I had done a pretty good job until we moved into a temporary rental and discovered that most of our furniture didn’t fit. A second purge took place, only this time it was mainly larger items, like furniture, but it was furniture and keepsakes I had already decided I was going to keep. Now those too were gone. The next move was less than a year later, into another state and another rental, as we tried to figure out where and when we wanted to purchase a house. Even with a storage unit, we had to purge again.

With each move, I felt my heart rip apart little by little, and I found myself asking God, “What are You doing to us?” But it wasn’t really about what He was doing to us. It was about what He wanted to show us. I sensed Him saying to me:

Carole, where is your heart? You can’t take any of this with you. I never asked you to store up treasure on earth. I asked you to store up treasure in heaven. I have treasures that need to be searched out and handled with care. Will you “mine” for My treasures in the places where I am sending you?

That last question stopped me.

What Is Worth Investing In?

“God’s portion is His people” (Deut. 32:9). Portion in this verse means inheritance. God is after people. Souls. Lives changed for the Kingdom of God.

I think sometimes we can spend so much energy accumulating things here that we forget we are sojourners, only passing through. We organize our homes, protect our possessions, collect things we love, and work hard to build something that will eventually be left behind.

There is nothing inherently wrong with that, or wrong with wanting beautiful things. God has blessed me with a wonderful life and with the desires of my heart, just as He did my parents. I believe He loves to bless His children with beautiful things. But earthly treasures are not the goal. Heavenly treasures are. The things we can’t put in a moving truck. The things that won’t end up at a garage sale. The things that cannot be lost, broken, sold, or left behind.

It’s people.

Every time I think about my neighbor’s house, or my mother having to leave the home she had known for nearly sixty years, I am reminded that none of us gets to keep what we have accumulated here. And maybe that is not a tragedy. Maybe it is an invitation. An invitation to loosen our grip. An invitation to hold earthly things with open hands. An invitation to stop measuring our lives by what we have accumulated and start measuring them by what we have invested in eternity.

Shortly before she died, Corrie ten Boom visited Chuck Swindoll’s church. He was standing at the door afterward when she walked out and asked him to let her see his hands. He held them out, and she placed her little hands in his and said, “Let me tell you something, Pastor Swindoll. You must always hold everything loosely, because if you don’t, it will hurt when the Father pries your fingers loose and takes them from you.”

I imagine she was thinking of her own life, of what happened to her family during World War II and all that she endured during her time in a concentration camp. She knew firsthand what it meant to have things taken away that she never would have willingly surrendered. And her words have stayed with me.

Friends, Jesus told us where to put our treasure: “Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven” (Matt. 6:20).

What Will Matter When We Leave?

God took me through a sifting that I didn’t understand at the time. With every move, something else was stripped away. Things I thought I needed, things I had carefully held onto, things I had attached memories and meaning to - all had to be released. And yet, somewhere along the way, I discovered a contentment I hadn’t felt, perhaps ever.

And as I look back now, I realize God wasn’t trying to take something from me. He was trying to remind me where true treasure is found, and to be careful that the things of this world never become such a distraction that I lose sight of why I am here in the first place.

I am here for people. For souls. For the Kingdom.

One day, someone will carry everything out of our homes. Someone else may sit in our chairs, open our cabinets, wear our clothes, or hold the things we once treasured. And that’s okay. Because none of it was ever meant to go with us. What will go with us is what we have invested in eternity. And when the time comes for everything earthly to be left behind, I want my treasure, to already be waiting for me in heaven.

God Bless You Today,

Carole