Where your treasure is

I drove past a new self-service storage building the other day. I can’t remember what was there before. One sees more and more of these facilities as time goes by. They resemble low-end condos except that people aren’t allowed to live there, only their things—which is a bit of a cruel joke, like the revenge of the Materialism Fairy.

I never heard of self-storage places when I was a kid. I checked and, sure enough, the first ones appeared in 1958 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., which would be about the time that post-war families started lavishing Dick and Jane with all their hearts’ desires, because the Great Depression generation wanted their kids “to have a better life.” That was also the time of Queen for a Day, the popular television game show that kicked off the genre of big-prize giveaway programming.

Evidently, people’s houses were still fairly able to contain all our big-prize giveaways in the subsequent decades, for the idea didn’t gain much traction until the 1990s. But in the five years of the new millennium, more than 3,000 new facilities sprung up every year. To date, the windowless, corrugated-metal, domestic-spillover rentals cover an area three times the size of Manhattan and represent a multi-billion-dollar industry.

I have had only one occasion to visit a self-storage unit. It was with a woman who had solicited my help in cramming more stuff in her 10-foot-by-5-foot cell. I cannot recall the entire contents of the crammed walk-in-closet-sized unit, but suffice it to say that it included things she did not need for living (that’s why they were in storage) but things she could not live without. A hundred bucks per month seemed like a high price for sentimentality or indecision.

Jesus told us to be careful because “… one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12:15, ESV).

“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Luke 12:34, ESV).

Note that Jesus does not say “where your heart is, there will your treasure be also,” but the other way around. The heart follows the treasure and is dragged into expensive and ridiculous inconveniences in order to protect it. Ask the woman who is schlepping across town with more stuffed animals and extra handbags to cram in her cell.

A great stocking stuffer: Andrée Seu Peterson’s Won’t Let You Go Unless You Bless Me, regularly $12.95, is now available from WORLD for only $5.95.