I remember a story (joke) I heard many years ago. “It seems there was a very rich man who had been diagnosed with a terminal disease. As he lay on his bed close to death he called for his wife. He instructed her to go down to the bank and withdraw all of his money and place it in a pillow case. “When you get it home put the pillow case, with all the money in it, in the attic just above our bedroom and my bed. His thought was that when he died his spirit would leave his body and on its way up and to the great beyond he would grab the pillowcase and money to take with him. His wife was dutiful and did as she was instructed. A few days later her husband passed away. Sometime after the funeral and after things had returned to normal, the wife went to the attic to do some cleaning. While there she discovered the pillow case with all of her husband’s money still in it. She muttered to herself, “I knew I should have put the pillowcase with his money in the cellar.”
The Lord taught, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven…for where your treasure is there will your heart be also + No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other; …(Matt; 6). ‘Things/treasure’, have always been a dilemma for we human beings. It seems that our primary goal in life is to find comfort and having ‘things’ that seem to bring the most comfort and happiness. One time a man and his wife were leaving church and the wife turned to her husband and asked, “Did you see that new hat that Sister Shirra was wearing?” “No, I didn’t” he replied. “Well, did you see the new velvet dress Sister Stewart had on?” The husband said, “No, I don’t think I saw that either.” “Well, A lot of good it does you to go to church.” snapped his wife.”
Somehow, I do not believe it was the spirit in the meeting that led her to notice all of the material things she saw. When I first joined the church I was in the army. Shortly thereafter I was given a brief leave to go home. I was so full of the spirit at the time that I could hardly contain it. I thought that when I got home and within a few days I would teach my family the Gospel and have them all baptized before I had to go back. I felt just like the fourteen year old girl that my companion and I baptized while on a stake mission sometime later. The Gospel had come so easy to her that she said, “Why isn’t everybody a member of the church?” My family would not even give me a minute of their time to listen. I went back to the base very disappointed. They were too caught up in the world to be bothered with spiritual things. The moral to that story is- We can never assume other people are going to think or feel exactly like we think and feel. What I learned from my experience at home was that without tolerance a person will find it hard to keep the faith. I expected too much from my family and at first I expected too much from the members of my ward. If they believed, they would be perfect; well, they weren’t. Too, it wasn’t a matter of their wanting to lay up treasure on earth, it was more a matter of having to make a living and to provide for their families. They had to live ‘in the world’. Yet, they were good people living as spiritually as they could. When I began to realize the way things are, I became more tolerant and less judgmental. I had to work on myself and my own spirituality and where I could help others I would, but hopefully, I stopped judging. Brigham Young said that; “Whatever you have it is the Lord’s, you own nothing. …the Lord has placed what I have in my hands, to see what I will do with it…I have neither wife nor child…they are only committed to me, to see how I will treat them. If I am faithful, the time will come when they will be given to me.” Judith P. Benjamin said it well, “I know no better test of a man than his possession of the affection of those intimate with him.” She said it well!
Like the rich man and his pillowcase full of money, it wasn’t his to take with him. If we could all see the world and its wealth and all worldly things as borrowed and what we inherit in the hereafter will be determined by how well we took care of the people in our lives and how well we used the things we borrowed, we would be more caring, and loving. God bless us to that end.