Where is Your Heart?

We are told that where our heart is, there our treasure lies. This is something which proves to be a more and more certain truism.

I have found that my heart is not in God. If it were, I would not sin, but would seek to guard my treasure.

Nor is my heart in heaven. If it were, I would strive first and foremost for the Kingdom of Heaven.

My heart is in the world. My heart is in myself. I am a selfish person with selfish interests. I snapped at someone close to me the other day, a sort of adopted little sister, because she stole a cookie from my plate. It wasn't really the loss of a cookie that bugged me; I'm gladly not that attached to food, although a good cookie is always a wonderful thing to have. What upset me was that she stole it. She was trying to be playful, of course, and I knew it. I'd often played around, but only because I knew it wasn't right to be upset. When she stole it this time, I snapped and said, "here, have them all!" And I tossed the plate in front of her. This is not what Jesus meant when He said, "if a man asks for your tunic, give him your cloak as well."

Within a few seconds, she was crying. She had no idea that she should have expected that and I don't know where it came from.

Why had it gotten on my nerves? Because people trample over me a lot. People take and take. I was the lonely kid who walked up and down the blacktop every recess as a child. I was the reject. I was the kid who got picked on. Some of that still haunts me. I insult myself a lot. I beat myself up when I'm not good enough. Why? Because I always assumed the best of others...I always just thought something was wrong with me. I never just told myself, "those kids are jerks" and left it at that...so I'd make excuses for them, "I really am a loser. I deserve this kind of treatment."

I don't like it when people don't ask and just take. I don't like it when people are rude to me. I don't like it when people do things to get on my nerves...but most of all, I don't like it when I do those things to others.

So I beat myself up...I tell myself I'm worthless and then I wonder why I am. The fact is, that's pride. It is pride because it's completely focused on myself and not at all on Christ.

Sure, I want to make God happy, but it's more about my being worthy of His happiness than His being pleased. My heart is in myself, not in God. The difference between these two dispositions seems entirely impossible to overcome. I must become humble. I must place my heart in God. Up to now, I have made very little progress, and perhaps only a few cells of heartflesh are conformed to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. God help me, piece by piece, bit by bit, to become an honest, humble man...a man after His own heart.

Lord Jesus, I ask your most blessed and Immaculate Mother Mary to accept my heart and give it to you. May I become yours by her intercession. May my heart, my treasure, be in you, not for my own glory, but for love of the Triune Godhead who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.