Treasures in Heaven...

   I am doing this really cool study that my friend Ginny started. A group of us are reading through the New Testament in 75 days and writing about the things that we are learning. It has just started so you can still join in! Seriously, what better thing could you do than curl up with God's word and then really listen for God's voice and try to write out what you learn...and on top of it, you get to learn from others too!
     Today we read Matthew chapters 5-7...I have read it so many times and yet today I just feel in awe at the weight of it all, the depth of it all, the heavy pure truth of it all. My prayer is that those truths will somehow etch on my heart and soul.
    Certain verses really struck me today. The first being:

" Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Matthew 6:19-21

      How much time do I spend chasing after things that moth and rust will destroy? Things that will pale and get old? For years so much of my identity was marked by how I looked, what I ate and the style of my home. I was so hurt when someone told me that they were asked what type of style I had in my home and their answer was, "she doesn't have one." It cut so deeply for so long.
    Now, our home is tiny and the funiture is rubbed bare in places from little hands and feet crawling up on it. The beautiful chair that was my pride and joy has dirt spots from mudpie shoes joyfully forgotten when someone came for a snuggle. There are piles on kid art, laundry and dishes.
   Years ago, at the end of the day, my favorite thing was to look through catalogs of home decorating and fashionable kid clothes...to plan and figure out how to best present our family 'picture' to the world. Now, with money tight and going to better places, the things we savor as the sun sets are the giggles, the answers to prayer, the friendships so ripe and deep in our home and in our lives...and those frayed pieces of furniture, they are like old friends too as they tell the story of God's faithfulness on bringing us on a journey to what is deep and real and true. Instead of examining catalogs, we are finding ourselves examining our hearts praying for more of God's truth in our lives as it is truly what is worthy of the word 'treasure.'
     I know that I still have so far to go and that brings me to the other verse that struck me:

" The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!" Matthew 6:22-23

     Oh how this convicts me...how easy it is to let judgement, or anger or conceit slip in. To still worry about the way the kid's hair looks or what someone will think when they enter our little home. How tempting to take another poke at that old hurt one more time....my prayer is that God will show me the spots on my light, the places that are dingy, where I look through the dust rather than with clean eyes.....

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