If developing iron buns and biceps happens to be my passion, commitment will compel me to seize every available opportunity to practice lifting weights. If living a life of love and generosity and lightheartedness is my passion, commitment will compel me to seize every available opportunity to practice lifting the weight of my hostility, my greed, my doubt. To that end, life is God’s gym . . . each moment challenges me to practice; every situation invites me to lighten up.

The game, of course, is in the “if.” Where, in fact, is my passion? Or, as Jesus might inquire, “Where is your treasure? What’s it going to be? Buns and biceps, or love and generosity and lightheartedness?” He always took it to the level of cause. He wanted us to know that passion serves significance. Whatever we value the most commands our commitment. “Where your treasure is, there your heart shall be also.”

I hear Jesus encouraging me to stay tuned to my heart space. How’s it going in yours? Whole and happy, or broken and sad? Either experience contains a grace. In God’s grand design it’s always win-win. Whole and happy? Time to enjoy! Broken and sad? Time to practice. Time to work out some understanding. A broken heart is God’s Nordic Trak. It’s an event inviting me to awaken to the realization that I’m still more invested in buns and biceps (earth stuff) than I am in love and generosity and lightheartedness (heavenly stuff). Remember, being lost in an unawakened state doesn’t make me inadequate, worthless, unlovable, or spiritually deficient. It simply provides me the opportunity to experience the grace of unhappiness.

Acknowledging with some clarity the enormous stash of earth stuff I have assigned “treasure” status to has proven to be an extremely challenging piece of business. Initially, it was overwhelming to realize that every bit of conditionality I embraced was a set-up piece for another episode of broken heart. There was (is) so much! And it gets so subtle. I found myself lost, time after time, in the maze of those seemingly “reasonable” expectations that inevitably lead to “righteous indignation.” How humbling to discover that all expectations are irrational and that all forms of indignation constipate.

I remember how long I stayed totally lost in my irrational resistance to certain deposits in my driveway a number of years ago. Our neighbors across the street owned three cute little mutts that loved to hang out soaking up the warmth of my asphalt driveway. I had no problem with the dogs. But, I did have a significant problem with their tendency to leave behind considerable evidence of their having been there.

Really now, I thought it was absolutely reasonable to insist on my right to pull into my driveway, park and walk to my house after dark free of any fear of stepping in the well known substance. Who could possibly sanction me for an expectation that reasonable? The Spirit of Spiritual Wisdom, that’s who! The principle is immutable. “Lay up not for yourself treasure on earth” including the foolishness of making “no dog poop” so significant that its presence in my driveway instantly trashed my commitment to love and generosity. Get the picture? Over something as trivial as an organic reminder of a dog’s presence, I was sacrificing the sacred gifts of the kingdom of heaven. Dumber than that it doesn’t get. What a grace to finally recognize it.

It’s a useful metaphor. Is anyone or anything making deposits in your life that you are struggling to embrace with compassion and understanding? If that be the case, get real still and notice where your heart is. Chances are you’ve made a treasure out of some piece of cherished behavior that’s not coming your way at the moment. Chances are you are obsessing over its absence enough to blind you to the opportunity for awakening that your suffering contains.

But, rest easy, dear heart. God loves you with all Her heart and soul and strength just like you are right now and just like you are going to be when She’s finished polishing your buns of steel and your heart of gold.