Where Your Treasure Is

But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. -- Matthew 6.19-20

“The hand that rocks the cradle rules the nation.” In the nineteen fifties this belief lay at the foundation of society. No one questioned whether it was valuable for a mother to spend her time caring for the needs of her child. People understood that children needed more than basic care – they needed discipline, correction, and the attentive role-modeling that only a full-time parent can give.

So what happened?

A thorough answer to this question would fill a great many pages. I believe a central part of the answer has to do with the revolutions of the nineteen sixties. In particular, the women’s movement – and its culture of entitlement and self-actualization – bred a new generation of women who rejected the former way of thinking and embraced the lie that self-fulfillment and “having it all” are rights that no one, not even their children, should take away from them.

I once had dinner with a female surgeon and her eight-year-old son, Lucien. She got up from the table several times with calls from the hospital. After the second or third interruption Lucien let out a long sigh and said to me, “She cares more about her patients than she does about me.” I attempted to console him but quickly discovered I could not find the words. This was a woman who worked eighty hours a week while her son spent the majority of his time with a nanny or relatives. How could I argue with something that was so obviously true?

Do not misunderstand me: I am not saying there is anything wrong with being a surgeon or working eighty hours a week. These things only become morally wrong when they are pursued at the expense of others.

Though the phrase of Jim Elliot’s has become a little worn from use, it deftly articulates a concept well worth repeating: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” This philosophy is nowhere more applicable than in Christ-centered motherhood wherein a woman freely sacrifices her time, energy, and resources – she gives of her very soul – in order to prepare her child to live a fruitful life, both in this world and the next.

But she does not delight to put her child’s needs before her own because she is self-pitying or masochistic. Quite the contrary! The Christian mother is working for her own good as well as the good of her child; she understands that “without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he is and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him” (Hebrews 11.6).

Mothers are living illustrations of the concept of biblical rewards. Just as Christ was able to endure the cross “for the joy set before Him,” the Christian mother is capable of putting a stake through her own will in order to, out of obedience to Christ, service the needs of her family.

Christianity says if you want to be great you must be a servant; that in order to be first you must make yourself last. We give, believing that we will one day receive back in spades all that we have ‘given up.’ In the process, if we seek God, we can enjoy the added benefit of finding our needs met fully in Him.