Real treasure is not about what we want. Rather, it’s about what we need. And until we get those in the right order, we will continue to use treasure to create trash heaps.

One day I found myself sitting utterly exhausted and wholly spent from this failed journey to secure everything that I wanted. And when the tears abated and my vision finally cleared, I was astounded to find that I had always been surrounded by everything that I needed. And I have not cried since.

In an alarming turning of the proverbial tables, we repeatedly tell ourselves that what we ‘want’ is in fact what we ‘need.’ And if we ever dare push back our greed sufficiently so that we can catch even the slightest glimpse of the carnage wrought of ‘wants’ unleashed, pursuing our ‘needs’ will quite quickly end up being all that we ‘want.

I too often allow people to become a sterile commodity to be bartered in the service of my greed, and in doing something so absurdly reckless I foolishly barter away everything that meets my need.

Why is it when I pursue the praises of men I find myself with everything that I’ve looked for but nothing that I need? That’s because I have an extraordinary habit of looking for the wrong thing in the wrong place.

No person, collection of people, institution, government or organization of any kind can in any way promise to meet all of my needs for no person, collection of people, institution, government or organization possesses the array of resources necessary to do that. And so, I am left with the reality that either there is a God who can meet all of my needs, or I’ve been stranded in an existence that created me with needs that the existence itself cannot meet.

Sacrifice is realizing that the depth of my need can only be quenched by giving away the soul of myself.

What we forget is that the past is not a place to live. Rather, it is the place that gives us what we need to live more robustly in a present that will become an even more magical past if we let it be so.