For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:21)
I’m reminded of a story about Sam Snead playing a practice round at the Masters. Whether it’s completely true or not, the point it makes is worth sharing.
Sam was playing with some younger pros when they reached the tee on No. 13 at Augusta National. One of the young guys chose to lay up with a 3-wood, trying to get it as far around the corner as possible. Sam Snead looked at him and said, “What are you doing? When I was your age, I took it right over those trees.”
So the young pro put the 3-wood back in the bag, grabbed the driver, and tried to take it over the trees. If you’ve ever been to ANGC, you know that even the longest hitters in the world can’t do that today.
As the ball rattled around and disappeared into the woods, Sam Snead smiled and said, “Of course, when I was your age, those trees were about ten feet tall.”
In life, we can learn some good lessons from older, wiser, and more experienced people. Sometimes the young, even the very young, can teach a valuable lesson.
That brings me to a story that is absolutely true—one involving my daughter when she was two years old. It’s especially meaningful because it happened at Christmas.
As most parents know, kids often have a pacifier—binky, soother, whatever you call it. My daughter couldn’t nap or sleep without hers. But in the weeks leading up to Christmas of 1984, she had stopped asking for it. She was sleeping and napping just fine, which was nice since we didn’t know where it was.
After a wonderful Christmas Day—opening presents, enjoying family, celebrating together—about an hour before bedtime, she walked into the room with her binky in her mouth. It had fallen under her bed and was covered in carpet fuzz, but she didn’t care. She popped it in with no care in the world.
That night, as we knelt beside her bed, tucked her in, and said our prayers together, I said, “Sweetheart, today we celebrated the birth of Jesus. We sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to Him—but you didn’t give Him a gift.”
She looked at me with wide eyes as I said, “And I know what He wants for His birthday.”
More curiosity.
“He wants your binky. Would you like to give Jesus your binky?” She shook her head emphatically—no.
I tried again. “But He really wants a binky.” She sat up, took it out of her mouth, looked at me, and said,
“Daddy… go buy Him one,” and lay back down on her pillow.
After laughing, I delivered what I thought was the convincing close.
“But Aubriana, He doesn’t want me to buy Him a binky. He doesn’t want just any binky. He only wants your binky. That’s the only thing He wants from you.”
She sat up in the bed, looked me straight in the eyes, removed the binky from her mouth, and said,
“Daddy… God just wants your heart.”
In that moment, I was stunned, humbled, and quietly undone. The Holy Spirit spoke through a two-year-old girl and reminded me of something profound: I had been trying to give God many things—my effort, my work, my plans—while holding back the very thing He wanted most.
My heart.
I told her she was absolutely right—and that she could keep her binky as long as she wanted.
So let me ask you: Have you been trying to give God things while holding back your heart? To surrender fully, give Him the thing he desires most…our hearts.
Prayer: Father, as David prayed, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” And Spirit help us to “Guard our hearts above all else,
for it determines the course of our life.”