A puddle
and a fluffy doodle
a puddle
It was one of those major life decisions. Shall I be a stodgy, yet responsible adult who returns smol nephew in pristine condition? Or shall I permit the toddler to tromp around a delectable puddle, guaranteeing soggy socks, yet theme-park level fun for at least a solid ten minutes while whimsically softening the stares and glares of passersby into grins? We chose whimsy.
a podcast
I enjoyed this 4-part series on generosity by John Mark Comer. I resonated most with Sunny’s 12-minute story, grateful how God’s bringing me on a similar journey to find true happiness. We’re all looking for it, right? Happiness. It’s crazy how the narrow way of Jesus—so counter-intuitive to our human wiring—leads to the greatest freedom.
Two quotes:
To translate this ancient idea of stewardship that Jesus talks about to our modern economy, imagine an asset manager. If you’re a money manager, your job is to invest the million dollars someone else has given you. That money does not belong to the asset manager. That money belongs to the owner. The money manager’s job is to steward that money well, to make it grow. You see this in Jesus’ parables—the talents, gold, etc. They make a living if they do a good job. If they just took that money and bought a house in the Bahamas, the owners would call the FBI. But if they were to do a really good job, the owner would likely give them more money to steward more. So, the asset manager is a modern adaptation of Jesus’ word picture for how our relationship is to be with wealth.
There are three core components to the biblical theology of stewardship. The first is the idea that God owns everything. The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it. Lines and lines and lines of Scripture show us this. It communicates that God made this world and we are guests. He is our provider, our caretaker, our Father. The second is we are entrusted with God’s resources to do good in the world. Where we go wrong is we say ok, God gave me this paycheck, it’s mine. This job, this income level, it’s mine. We think 100% of my resources are to spend on my life. When the reality is: some of it is for you to spend on your life. To honor your hard work, your skill and development of your person, to enjoy life, to celebrate. But some of it is for you to give, to share, to do justice, to right wrongs in the world, to care for others. The third is: God blesses us to give more, not to have more. To quote Randy Alcorn: God blesses us to raise our standard of giving, not our standard of living.
And a prayer from the last episode inspired by 1 Timothy 6:
Godliness with contentment is great gain. We bring nothing into this world and we take nothing out of it. We who call Jesus Lord devote ourselves to resisting greed which plunges the human heart into ruin and pierces it with many griefs. We are determined to practice generosity with free hearts, fixing our hope on God and not the uncertainty of wealth. We desire to be rich in good deeds and willing to share all that we have, laying up for ourselves treasure that will not decay, but will shine in the Age to come. Amen.
a doodle
I drew this fluffy chicken the other day.
be well, friends!
love,
reb