Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Those words of Jesus have haunted me for the last week.
Parents, where your treasure is, there your heart will be. But we can also say, “Parents, where your treasure is, there your children’s hearts will be also.”
What do you treasure, parents?
I remember the day I understood I had grown up. I went home to my parents’ house and my mom had painted my old bedroom. To my shock and surprise, the walls were bare. Gone were my plaques, ribbons, trophies, and medals. All the accomplishments of my childhood and teenage years had been stored in the attic in a cardboard box.
I grew up in a home that celebrated extracurricular accomplishments. My dad’s pride in his sons was (and continues to be) often embarrassingly over-the-top. They celebrated every tackle, every good grade, and every home run. And yet, my stuff was in a box, and for my parents, there was never a second thought about that box in the attic.
My mom is not heartless. She had moved on. Her boy had grown up. She wasn’t living in the past. Her treasure was not in plaques from Broome High School and trophies from little league. And my heart was not there either.
One of the reasons my parents could move on was because my accomplishments were my accomplishments. They celebrated with me, but those trophies didn’t represent a significant financial investment. They had not worked hard for those trophies and ribbons. I worked, they celebrated. There were no travel sports, no huge financial buy-ins to play on special teams, and no specialized off-season training.
I’ve often wondered how they would have felt about those trophies if they had spent thousands of dollars on specialized training and coaching. I’ve often wondered if they would have seen those as my trophies, or their trophies.
I’m convinced that many parents spend thousands of dollars on their kids’ extracurricular activities because they are living vicariously through their kids. Their great desire is for their kid to be a better ball player than dad was or to be a better dancer than mom or, (and yes, this one has been said to me) to be more popular than they were in high school. And so, they spend the money. They invest their treasure. They fly here and they drive there. They spend tens of thousands of dollars, for what?
To prove to the world where their heart is? To show their child where the treasure is?
Don’t be surprised if you get what you want. You may get the scholarship or the crown or the ring. Your child may finally be known for their dance or their cheers or their home runs and you may finally be known as the parent of that athlete. But at what cost?
If you still have children in your home, at some point, many of their greatest possessions will end up in your attic. Their trophies, their ribbons, their accomplishments. Some of you will tape up those boxes with a small smile and treasure a few memories. Others of you will have to stare at those boxes. The boxes with trophies and rings will represent an investment of thousands of dollars. You’ll tape up a box with $20,000.00 worth of ribbons and trophies, but what will you have to show for it? what will you have lost for it?
A dusty box of trophies is no treasure, but it could be a reminder of years of wasted investment.
What is in your attic? What will be in your attic in twenty years. As far as I know, there is still a cardboard box in my parents’ attic that contains my childhood. It is filled with trophies, plaques, and ribbons. I haven’t seen it in years, but if it still exists, here’s what I know: the ribbons are rotten, the certificates are yellowed, and the trophies have lost their luster.
That’s what happens to treasures in this world. Moth and rust destroy, and thieves break in and steal.
Parents, if you want your children to become adults who are committed to Christ and his church, make sure you are parents who prioritize Christ and his church at the expense of everything else. The things to which you commit as a young family will impact the commitments your children make as adults. When you choose to prioritize sports and extracurricular activities on Sundays, remember, you are prioritizing things that will end when your kids are sixteen or eighteen years old. Then what?
I played little league on Saturdays, I played football on Fridays, and we went to church every Sunday and Wednesday, whether I liked it or not. Get this, I was even expected to show up at church on Wednesday nights after practice . . . regardless of how I smelled. We never played a tournament at Disney, I never traveled out of state for a showcase. My parents spent money to travel to away games and they bought me sporting equipment. That was it.
They couldn’t tithe and care for others AND pay for all the other stuff. So, they invested in our church, and they invested in our community, and they fed everyone that showed up at our house. And then, they put all my trophies in the attic.
What if you get what you want? What you get all that your heart desires for your children? What then?
Maybe you will finally get them the athletic accolades you want them to have. Perhaps, God will allow your child to earn a scholarship in football or dance. Maybe, your kid will be class president or a beauty queen.
Then what?
The trophies from my childhood are relics of the past and their value does not last into eternity. The trophies of our children’s childhoods will soon be relics of the past, but what of their hearts? What of their souls?
Jesus said,
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.
Matthew 6:19-21none
Parents, lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, and in so doing, lay up heavenly treasures for your children as well.
Photo by Michal Balog on Unsplash
