“Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.” (Matthew 6:19–21 NLT)
One of the most secure vaults in the world is located deep inside a mountain range on a remote island halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole. The purpose of this vault is not to secret away jewels, gold bars, or other items regularly featured in heist movies. Rather, this is the location of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a repository that is designed to safeguard the biodiversity of the world’s crops. Inside the vault are duplicate copies of seeds found in nearly 17,000 regional gene banks. The Svalbard vault helps safeguard these seeds against their potential loss in the regional gene banks due to large-scale regional crises, lack of government funding, or even faulty storage.
However, even for an undertaking this massive – which includes more than a million samples from nearly every country in the world and has room for a total of 2.5 billion seeds – it will ultimately fail, as all things do. In the end, it is still vulnerable to theft and the ravages of time. The only truly secure place is found in the Kingdom of Heaven under the guard of our Savior.
Carve out some time to reflect on your treasures – the desires of your heart – and where you store them.