It’s obvious, isn’t it? The place where your treasure is,
is the place you will most want to be, and end up being
Matthew 6:21 (The Message)
I remember reading the story of Eli and Samuel when my children were small. I was very put out with these two supposedly wise men for not being better disciplinarians.
Seriously, I thought, the Bible is very clear: “Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.” Proverbs 22:6
I disciplined my children because I love them.
The pay off for all these years of good, loving discipline supported by psychology, my best friends and my parents was supposed to be this: teenagers and young adults who did what they were supposed to do.
My own teenagers acted like, well, teenagers.
Making my teenagers do what I wanted them to do was sort of like opening up a feather pillow, letting the feathers fly in the wind, and then trying to capture them and put them back in the pillow.
I ran around chasing a lot of feathers.
I was a little hurt it hadn’t all turned out the way I wanted.
My children had become my treasures. I cared more about their love for me than I did about God’s love for me.
What a burden that was for them, and how it stunted my spiritual life.
I grew a little when I read Matthew’s verse out of The Message.
When I began focusing on how I was doing with God rather than how my nearly grown children were doing with me, I grew a little more.