Have you ever wondered why people don’t have the money to do the things that you are so passionate about? Ever wondered why it is you don’t have the funds to do what others are so passionate about?
I love to golf. Admittedly, it can be is an expensive hobby to take on. When people ask me how often I golf, I have a great answer: “Not as much as I’d like, more than my wife likes, and all that my budget can afford.” That inevitably leads into a discussion of the cost of golfing and who that individual just can’t afford to golf. What they don’t realize is that I have no problem sacrificing other expenses so that I can golf. I don’t have digital cable. As of this writing still don’t have a flat screen TV. We eat at home way more than we eat out. We buy used vehicles. I can’t remember the last time I bought a CD that wasn’t a gift for someone else.
What is it that makes golf affordable to me but not others? It has nothing to do with income. It has everything to do with priorities. We always have enough money to do the things we place high priority on. We may not always feel that way, but the truth is, every time we make an expenditure, we are revealing our priorities. When someone “can’t” pay their mortgage, but they’ve been out for dinner four nights a week for the last month, it shows their priorities.
Jesus said the words that echo in my mind: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt. 6:21). At first scan we can take this as a statement that indicates that we will fund our priorities. And there is truth in this statement. However, there is a deeper teaching though: Our heart follows our funding. Where we invest our time, talent and treasure, our hearts will make those places a priority.
In our arrogance, when we try to help people we assume that their problems would be so much smaller, it not go away all together, if their priorities were the same as our own. However, what we fail to realize is that we have our own problems… we are not the standard to which others need to measure themselves. There needs to be something that is objective, not tainted by culture and selfish ambition. If we use the priority system that is found in Scripture, we will see that we all fail in some way, but we will also have to perfect model to emulate.
