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. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Matthew 6:19-21 ESV
It can be challenging to live with an eternal view, especially within the demands of a marriage. This world has a way of shrinking our long perspective into just this moment. The moment we need to win this argument, the moment we are stressing about all that we have to get done today, the moment we are stuck in traffic and late for work, the moment we receive that phone call or make that discovery. These difficult moments—the big ones and the little ones—are the moments that define us, and they take our eyes off of eternity.
Even when we spend time in the Word or in church, far too often our treasure is found in the created over the Creator. The world has the power to shift our focus and distract us from the eternal view. We forget who God is and who we are. We lose our direction and our purpose. We get lost in the midst of our intense, chaotic, consuming moments. Those moments can seem so urgent at the time, and they shove God into the background.
When we lose our eternal perspective, our emotions run away with the moment. We suddenly cling to the demands of right now. We feel the pressure of a big assignment at work, but our spouse has made plans for the evening, so we explode as our priorities rub up against each other. We purchase a new house and our spouses lose their job; we prioritize family time, while our spouse prioritizes football; we look forward to relaxing after a long week, but the honey-do list will take all weekend; we expect our children to be respectfully obedient while our spouse excuses non-compliant behavior in the name of peace. All moments with strong emotions that can cause us to tailspin into anger, fear, or despair.
Scripture is God’s voice reminding us that this is not all there is. This is not our home. We were created to spend eternity with Jesus. Scripture is God’s voice shouting at us to stop focusing on all the treasures found here on this earth because they just don’t matter. When your response to a situation is strongly emotional, search your heart for where you are clinging to an earthly treasure. The conflicts you and your spouse engage in are the result of outward responses to inward passions. When we are holding tightly to our treasures, and we bump up against our spouse’s treasures, we end up in battle.
The most beautiful part of God’s story is that He gives us the grace we need for our self-focused and distracted hearts. If we seek Him, we will find Him. He will keep our eyes on Him, focused on eternity but we have to intentionally choose Him over the world in every little moment. We have to work at pulling ourselves and our marriages out of the moment, and constantly fixing our eyes on the eternal perspective. If God has already secured us a place in heaven with Him, He will give us all the grace we need to keep our focus on Him.
Press on ~ you are loved 💗
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