How Your Possessions Are Affecting Your Heart
Joshua Becker For most of my life, I have lived under the impression that my actions will follow my heart—that the things I treasured most would be reflected by my investments. As the saying goes, “You can tell what’s important to someone by looking at their calendar and checkbook.”
While I think there is some truth in that statement, over the past few years of pursuing minimalism, I have begun to notice that the inverse is probably even more true.
It is not necessarily that my actions follow the desires of my heart. Instead, I find that my heart appears naturally drawn to the places where I have invested most.
It is a subtle distinction, but an important one.
Jesus said it like this, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Notice in his phrasing, it is our heart that follows our treasure.
This principle was profoundly etched in my mind the day my family and I went grocery shopping and left the store to find a fresh, large, white scrape across the passenger side of our maroon minivan.
The minivan was far from new. Yet, there was an immediate pit that emerged in my stomach over the wrong that had been committed. The driver kindly left us with no insurance or contact information, just a large noticeable scrape down the side of our vehicle. The distress was strengthened by the fact that I knew too well I was too cheap to ever get it repaired. The unsightly scratch would likely remain over the course of the van’s life.
My wife and I drove away in silence.
I began to reflect on the scratch and more importantly, how the incident had impacted me internally.