{"id":3928,"date":"2024-08-20T07:18:57","date_gmt":"2024-08-20T11:18:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=3928"},"modified":"2024-08-20T07:18:57","modified_gmt":"2024-08-20T11:18:57","slug":"the-treasure-we-seek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/20\/the-treasure-we-seek\/","title":{"rendered":"The Treasure We Seek"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>

Most people fantasize, from time to time, what it might be like to be the richest person on earth.

What if we could buy anything a human heart might possibly desire?

For William Randolph Hearst, that fantasy was reality. He actually did <\/em>buy anything his heart desired.\u00a0

In the process of building an unsurpassed media empire of newspapers and magazines during the early decades of the twentieth century, Hearst accumulated staggering wealth.\u00a0

Among his multiple residences was Hearst Castle, which he built (although never actually finished) on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean not far from San Simeon, California. Hearst owned something like 100 miles of oceanfront property.\u00a0The Castle sat in the middle of a quarter million acres.

Let\u2019s just say that if he ever got the urge to do a little mowing, it would have taken longer than one weekend.

Hearst filled the Castle with world-class paintings, sculptures, and handcrafted treasures.\u00a0Checkbook in hand, he plundered the salons and drawing rooms of Europe.\u00a0It\u2019s estimated that at one time he personally owned 20% of the world\u2019s fine art.

Today the Hearst Castle remains a one-of-a-kind museum that is open to the public.

It\u2019s reported that at one point Hearst fell in love with a beautiful print.\u00a0He simply had to have the original painting. He dispatched one of his staff to track it down.\u00a0It was not an easy task, and it devoured several thousand dollars.

Ultimately the staffer returned with both good news and, well, surprising news.

The good news is that he had located the original painting.\u00a0

The surprising news is that Hearst already owned the original. It was in storage in one of his warehouses.

It\u2019s possible to search the world for a treasure we already possess.

Do we seek joy, peace of mind, grounds for living with confidence, and assurance that life\u2019s finish line will be extraordinary? None of those treasures can be purchased with a checkbook.

But they\u2019re all available, right now, to those who have bet their lives on following Jesus.\u00a0

Why is it so easy to forget that we already \u201cown\u201d everything we so desperately seek?

\u201cWe have to accept that human culture is in a mass hypnotic trance,\u201d writes Father Richard Rohr.\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019re sleepwalkers.\u201d\u00a0That’s why Jesus says on multiple occasions, \u201cBe watchful!\u201d\u00a0And the apostle Paul pleads, \u201cWake up, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you!\u201d (Ephesians 5:14).

We may find ourselves slogging through another day with our own set of wishes:

If I only knew God was really there.\u00a0If I only knew everything was going to be OK.\u00a0If I only knew that my life mattered.<\/em>

All too often we\u2019re oblivious to the fact that we already have the blessings we\u2019ve been searching for.

Rohr continues: \u201cWe cannot attain the presence of God because we\u2019re already totally in the presence of God.\u00a0What\u2019s absent is awareness.\u00a0Little do we realize that God is maintaining us in existence with every breath we take.\u00a0As we take another it means that God is choosing us now and now and now.\u201d

It\u2019s not that we need to go on searching for some kind of lost work of art \u2013 a spiritual masterpiece that will finally make life complete.

That treasure already belongs to us in Christ.

We just need to wake up and realize we\u2019re already the richest people on earth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here Most people fantasize, from time to time, what it might be like to be the richest person on earth. What if we could buy anything a human heart might possibly desire? For William Randolph Hearst, that fantasy was reality. He actually did buy anything his heart desired.\u00a0 In the process of… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3929,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[660,645],"class_list":["post-3928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-assurance","tag-treasure"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3928"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3930,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3928\/revisions\/3930"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}