Putting forth
michael young
In Matthew 6:21 Jesus Christ invites us to ponder what are we putting forth into the world.
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
You may have seen posts on social media that ask…If you could sit with someone who has passed, who would you choose. As many people would I’d first choose family members who were important in my life. I miss my grandpas and grandmas, uncle, aunts and so on. I would love to sit with my dad again and talk.
When my uncle passed years ago I wrote a poem that helped me express the inner grief I felt when he died. It was in the writing of that poem that I came see my uncle as my hippy worry stone. I would love to sit and talk with him about the affairs of our current world, especially the vitriol we hear and the rise of white rage once again that is infecting our society. I am sure that he and I would lament together as we did when he was alive.
One thing that has changed in the last few years since his death is my deepening faith, how much I see Jesus Christ as an important part of my life, how much I witness and experience a profound spiritual wisdom within and from Jesus Christ. I would tell him how Jesus Christ is helping me understand where my heart is there will be not only what I treasure, there will also be what I put forth into the world. I would love to wrestle with this with him. My uncle was more buddhist than Christian and I think he’d find value in our conversation, even if we come at wisdom from differing points of view.
I think of this wisdom that Jesus shares in terms of a treasure hunt. As in what do we look for in the world? What do we seek out? What do we see as important in our lives?
I wonder if an even deeper understanding may be that where our heart is, or the spiritual place that we live from is what people experience from us. What are we putting forth? What are people experiencing in us? Where is our heart?
If our heart is full of pain from past wounds and our heart is not healed we end up putting our pain into the world through anger and disfunction. If our heart is filled up and overflowing, like Jesus, with the love of God is that what we are putting forth? I wonder if that is the question that Jesus Christ is helping us ponder in Matthew.
To gaze into the world and see the beauty of creation, to gaze into the world and step into the Divine blessing of awe in our hearts is to gaze into the world and seek to experience the Divine Presence. When we discover the treasure of unearned, unbreakable Love within all of creation, experience this within our hearts, this becomes what we put forth into a world in desperate need of that Love.
For where your treasure is , there your heart will be also.
Where our hearts live, there will be also what we are putting forth.
Seek Divine Treasure
Discover Divine Love
Putting forth from a joyful heart