Treasures in Heaven

From At The Well:

There are dirty little plastic dishes in my sink.

There are piles of half-folded laundry in my living room, and crumbs in my carpet, and broken crayons under my table.

There are stuffed animals, and mismatched socks, and little girl barrettes, and board books under my bed.

Some people’s baker’s racks are neatly adorned with hand-painted tea cups. Mine is piled high with children’s pencil drawings and water color creations on construction paper.

My office is filled with books I’ve been meaning to read and books I’ve been meaning to sell and papers I need to file and papers I need to throw away.

It’s after bedtime, but my washing machine is still busily agitating, in hopes that I might have clean diapers in the morning.

At least the wooden train set made it into it’s box–no one likes that kind of middle-of-the-night surprise on the bottom of their bare foot.

Yes. My house is filled with stuff. Messes. Clutter. Dare I say, chaos. Some days, I get the best of it. Most days, it gets the best of me.

I’ve been thinking a lot about stuff lately…wondering just how easy it would be for us to condense all our earthly possessions into a small U-Haul trailer if the LORD told us to go somewhere else…and I’ve realized what a powerful grip stuff still has on me.

I think about how much time I spend cleaning stuff, rearranging stuff, tripping over stuff, looking for lost stuff, and buying more stuff. How much time my husband spends working to pay for stuff.

And yet, if the world were really to come to an end, and Jesus were to return tonight, there are really only five things around here that matter much…

…five” things” that I can take with me…

…my husband, and my four precious children.

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Matthew 6:19-21

Christ may not return tonight, but He is coming.

“But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.”

2 Peter 3:10

There is a far-worse middle-of-the-night surprise than stepping on wooden train pieces…

Am I living my life, each day, as though it were the very last day I had to teach my children to know, love, serve, and follow Him?

Am I?

Are you?