stewardship: a biblical perspective
I’m prepping for Sunday. We’re waist deep in this idea/value of Stewardship. But ideas like this may well sink us further:
Erma Bombeck was constantly asked if she saves up her best ideas for the next column, or how she parcels out and dribbles out her best ideas. Before Bombeck died she answered these queries in a column, “What’s Saved is Often Lost.”
“I don’t save anything. My pockets are empty at the end of a week. So is my gas tank. So is my file of ideas. I trot out the best I’ve got, and come the next week, I bargain, whimper, make promises, cower and throw myself on the mercy of the Almighty for just three more columns in exchange for cleaning my oven.
“I didn’t get to this point overnight. I came from a family of savers who were sired by poverty and . . . worshiped at the altar of self-denial.
“Throughout the years, I’ve seen a fair number of my family who have died leaving candles that have never been lit, appliances that never got out of the box . .
“It gets to be a habit.
“I have learned that silver tarnishes when it isn’t used, perfume turns to alcohol, candles melt in the attic over the summer, and ideas that are saved for a dry week often become dated.
“I always had a dream that when I am asked to give an accounting of my life to a higher court, it will be like this: ‘So, empty your pockets. What you get left of your life? Any dreams that were unfilled? Any unused talent that we gave you when you were born that you still have left? Any unsaid compliments or bits of love that you haven’t spread around?’
“And, I will answer, ‘I’ve nothing to return. I spent everything you gave me. I’m as naked as the day I was born.”
(ht to Len Sweet)
Doug Paggit from Solomons Porch takes a stab at similar ideas here.
Filed by Joe at December 12th, 2006 under articles