What Matters Most?
There are many things in life that matter, aren’t there? We would all agree that good health matters. Then, too, a good education matters. Work that we enjoy doing, which gives our life meaning, also matters. And, of course, financial stability matters. For us to have a meaningful life, all of these things matter.
What I have found, though, is that many people have all these things and are still dissatisfied with life. Is there one thing that matters more than anything else? I believe there is, yet we often overlook it, even though it is all around us. To a large extent our overall satisfaction with life will be decided on whether we find what matters most. It is the treasure so many people never find.
James Pitts, longtime chaplain of Furman University, tells a story that draws a kind of treasure map that helps us find what matters most. He tells how his father-in-law was forever telling him and his family about a buried treasure, a small fortune, hidden in the barn. If there were ever a crises in the family, he said, they could retrieve the treasure. It would always be there for them when they needed it.
James Pitts, Furman University Chaplain - 1937 – 2021
Whenever Pitts and his wife would visit his father-in-law, the elderly man would repeat the same story. “If you ever get really desperate,” he would say, “there’s the treasure, saved for a rainy day.”
Years passed and the father-in-law continued to tell the story at every family gathering. The story was told so frequently that Pitts, years earlier, had assumed that the tale was pure fiction, simply an imaginative myth to entertain the family.
After his father-in-law died, the family forgot all about the story and for many years went on with their lives. Pitts’ children grew to adulthood and started their own families. The story had seemingly faded from memory.
One summer, when the family had gathered together for a family reunion at the old homestead, Pitts’ adult children and their children began to reminiscence about their experiences on the farm. Out of the blue, someone brought up the story of the hidden treasure that had not been mentioned for ages. Back and forth they discussed whether there was any truth to the story. The consensus was that there was probably no truth to the story, but at the same time, they were not absolutely positive. Maybe there was something important buried in the old barn.
Finally, they decided they should at least look into the possibility that the barn contained some kind of treasure. After all, what would it hurt? Besides, there was the small chance that the old man had not made up the story. So, one weekend they rented a metal detector and planned a strategy to canvass the barn to search for the buried treasure.
The day of the search everyone rose early, ate a hearty breakfast, collected all their tools, and headed for the barn. Pitts’ grandchildren were excited and eager to discover the hidden treasure. With a metal detector, surely, they reasoned, it wouldn’t take long.
There were a number of false detections, with buried nails, horse shoes, and an assortment of small iron farm paraphernalia that had gotten covered with dirt over the years. All day long Pitts’ family, now rather large in size, walked back and forth over every square inch of the barn. While they looked, they laughed and joked with one another, took frequent breaks to munch on homemade cookies or sip on lemonade. During lunch, they gathered outside the barn and swapped experiences they had had on the farm, with each person sharing a personal memory.
When an afternoon thunderstorm interrupted their work, they paused again to listen to the thunder and watch the lightning and rain. The day passed quickly and darkness began to fall when the detector registered an especially dense concentration of metal. Everyone grew excited, sure that the big moment was right before them.
The children furiously dug, expecting at any moment to hit a metal box filled with the treasure. Suddenly, Pitts shouted, “We’ve found it! We’ve found it!”
The children and grandchildren were puzzled and looked at Dr. Pitts as though he had lost his mind. They had uncovered nothing and were still digging. They stopped digging and peered closely into the hole and saw just an empty space in the ground. There was nothing there, not even a piece of old farm equipment! Why would he say such an absurd thing?
It was then that Pitts began to laugh. “Don’t you see,” he said, looking at his children and grandchildren, “we’ve found the treasure. We’ve discovered what matters most. The treasure was never silver and gold or anything like that. The real treasure is that we have spent a wonderful, blessed day together, and have had the time of our lives, enjoying each other’s company. That’s what matters most. That’s what matters above everything else. That’s the treasure!”
Pitts understood well what so many of us miss. What matters most in this world is the relationships we forge with one another. There is nothing more important than that. Relationships are at the core of everything meaningful in life, everything that is true, noble, and precious—everything that is worth living and dying for.
This simple truth has been lost in much of today’s culture that prizes the material over the spiritual, greed over thrift, apathy over empathy, arrogance over humility, and vengeance over forgiveness. We live our lives as though a thousand other things matter more than relationships. But only in relationship—with God and others—will we find the true treasure that matters most.
