JOY CAN BE FOUND WHEN YOUR TIME AND TREASURE FOLLOW YOUR HEART

 

I wonder if you agree with me when I say that as we age, we appreciate more and more that the principle of sacrifice which we followed in our early lives is paying great dividends today.  For instance, when we were young and starting out, those early paychecks seemed like lots of money, and we could easily make choices to save for rainy days, or contribute to retirement savings plans.  After all, compared to what we were “earning” that paycheck amount was like a windfall! We had been used to pocket change through parental support from allowances and from small jobs like babysitting or paper routes (or in my native New England, snow shoveling). I’m so grateful when I look back and remember the discipline I had then, and I credit my parents for encouraging it.

 

Now that I am at the age where I must take mandatory withdrawals of retirement savings every month, it’s such fun! It feels like taking flight, and to further the analogy, such a departure from how utilitarian I must have seemed about spending money (particularly on myself) in what I now call my past life.

 

But like the character in Aesop’s Fable The Miser and His Gold, I realize that spending money on others as well as myself is essential to happiness.  And like my Aunt Alice (of happy memory) used to say, “I hope they have as much fun spending it as I had making it!” 

 

When we think about the best times of our lives, they were rarely spent alone.  And doesn’t finding like-minded loved ones interested in enjoying life together make planning and expenditure so much richer?

 

When we encounter those in a season of their lives who could legitimately use a helping hand and we are able to assist in some way, whose cup is actually filled more… ours or theirs?

 

When we look forward to a time and place where we’re sure wonderful memories will be made, don’t we picture our heart’s desire met and fulfilled not just because of the money we will spend, but because we will so enjoy the experience?

 

In the parable of the Rich Fool found in the 12^th chapter of the gospel of Luke, we read an important question asked by a man already rich: “Teacher, tell my brother to share his inheritance with me.” 

And the Lord’s answer comes in the form of an admonition: “Take care to guard against all greed. For though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions.”

 

Our earthly life is short, limited, and fleeting.  At any time we can be called to eternity.  At that moment, the rich harvest we wish to yield before God is weighed, and the faith with which we lived will be judged. How did we use our material goods? Our time? Our talent? Our treasure? Did our faith inform our lives?

 

Were we rich in love and fellowship, attentive to those less fortunate?  Did we focus externally on using the goods of this world for the glory of God, with a sense of stewardship and detachment?  Did we live in gratitude for all we were given?  Or did we amass wealth, feeling it was never enough, making use of it to indulge in a life of excess? 

 

We don’t live forever. We can save, even hoard.  We can focus on doing rather than on being.  But if we are eternity-minded, the illusion of doing more so we can have more dissolves into nothing when we hear the words spoken by the Lord to the Rich Fool - “The things you have prepared… to whom will they belong?”

We need to be on guard, only seeking the things of the world while reflectively paying close attention to what is really important.  A prosperous, materialistic society can be its own end, and the means to that end can become our life’s journey. We need always to balance the pursuit of larger homes, bigger cars, more stuff, and an excess of pleasure against the intentional sacrifice for others. Our value is not determined by what we own, but how we use what we have been given.  With a properly-ordered foundation, however, with a richness in faith and charity, we will have used the gifts we have been given… health, friendship, the power to find and bring joy… as pilgrims on an earthly journey employing and using worldly goods as a means to attain the goal for which we were made… eternity in heaven.

 

I have always felt fulfilled allowing the love that fills my heart to guide where I spend my time and treasure.  Knowing many of you as I do, and learning from your example, I know you find that same sense of fulfilment.  Our friend Matthew, quoting Jesus his 6^th chapter, concurs:

 

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and decay destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up treasures in heaven… For where your treasure is, there also your heart will be.”