Your Heart Always Follows Something

"...where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (Matthew 6:21, NIV)

It's surprising how easily our hearts latch onto the next thing. "Maybe this weekend will be different." "Once I finally get caught up..." "If this one problem would just go away..." We rarely stop to question those thoughts because they seem so ordinary. Yet each one quietly carries a promise. Maybe then I'll finally feel at peace. Maybe then life will feel complete. Maybe then I'll be satisfied. Have you ever noticed how ordinary those thoughts sound? That's probably why we follow them without ever stopping to ask where they're taking us. Those quiet hopes become so familiar that they almost sound like common sense. Little by little, they begin shaping what we expect tomorrow to give us that today cannot, and before long our hearts are leaning in that direction without us even realizing it.

Those quiet promises don't seem quite as harmless once we begin listening to what they're actually saying. We tell ourselves life will finally settle down when this happens or once that finally comes. Before long, we're no longer just looking forward to better circumstances. We're beginning to trust those promises to give us the peace we've been missing. Perhaps that's why they can quietly shape our hearts long before they ever shape our circumstances. Then Jesus quietly says, "...where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (Matthew 6:21).

Maybe Jesus was simply revealing why our hearts keep ending up where they do. So why do we keep believing that what we're waiting for will finally give us what it couldn't before? Jeremiah once wrote, "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" (Jeremiah 17:9). Could it be that Jesus is inviting us to ask an honest question? Have we ever stopped to examine whether the desires we're following can actually lead us to the peace we're hoping to find?

Have we been searching for the wrong kind of peace? Not the kind the world promises when everything finally works out, but the kind that only Jesus can give. He told His disciples, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives..." (John 14:27). Isn't that a different kind of peace than we've been expecting all along? Perhaps that's the peace we've really been searching for.

The next time we catch ourselves waiting for another "then," we could simply pause for sixty seconds instead of following that thought wherever it leads. We could tell Jesus what we're hoping that "then" will finally give us. The thought itself isn't prayer yet. But when that same thought is intentionally turned toward Him, it becomes prayer. Isn't it reasonable to expect that He hears us, whether we've known Him for years or are speaking to Him for the very first time?

What if the most important thing we can do isn't trying to find the answer by talking to ourselves, but talking with Jesus instead?

Prayer

Jesus, when my heart starts chasing another "then," help me pause and turn that thought toward You instead. Teach me to find the peace only You can give, and to trust You more each day. Amen.