Faithful Stewardship: How Far Might It Take Us?

December 01, 2006

Heather Koerner at Boundless Webzine shares an interesting, and inconvenient, spiritual growth experience concerning stewardship.  (HT Catherina Hurlburt)  While listening to a sermon about the early church, Heather came to see that her stewardship habits, while admirable from a human perspective, were unduly narrow from God’s perspective.

The scripture that grabbed Heather’s attention and wouldn’t let go was Acts 2:44-45.

“All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.”

I kept reading it over and over.  . . .  “They had everything in common?” I thought.  “Well, that’s nice for them, but that would never work nowadays. I can’t see Christian communal living working — even here in the Bible Belt.  . . .  And selling their possessions and goods to give to anyone as he has need?” I continued. “Wow! That’s awesome, but if the church can’t even get a handle on tithing, I doubt that most people would actually sell their stuff.” 

At that point, Heather found herself prompted to reexamine her incredulity.  She realized that, unless she were ready and willing to sell her possessions at the Lord’s request, she would “be clinging to [her] possessions as if they are really [her] own.”  Even if she were tithing and generously making freewill offerings, she would not be behaving as a faithful steward.  Heather tried to assure herself, “I know what being a steward is,” but she ultimately found herself unconvinced.

[S]itting there, I realized I had restricted myself to a narrow practice of the concept — that, as a steward, I should be “wise” with my money.  You know, not spend it foolishly.  Spend it where God wants.

All my life I’ve heard the saying, “God doesn’t just own 10 percent of your finances, He owns it all.”  I knew that.  But did I practice it?  Would a steward even flinch if the landowner told him to sell a field?  I doubt it.  It’s not the steward’s field, why should he care?  He’d just go do it.  Yet, here I was, flinching just at the idea of having to sell something of value to me.  . . .  Now, I’m starting to see the person that God wants — and is teaching me — to be.  The person He can trust to obey.  To do my duty in giving, yes.  But to be willing to do so much more.  To sell the field, if He commands it, without batting an eye.

While I haven’t heard God give me a direct command to sell or give away a specific possession, I can relate to Heather’s story.  Since moving back to the Washington, DC area two years ago, I have felt a deep, unshakeable desire to shed possessions.  The furniture, electronic equipment, old books and children’s toys – all of these possessions that we acquired over the years to enhance our comfort instead have become a heavy burden.  They feel like a millstone tied around my neck.  My wife and I are concerned that, if we hold onto these possessions, they easily could interfere with God’s plan for our lives.  They stand between us and a simpler, less acquisitive, lower income lifestyle, to which we may be called.

For several months now, in an attempt to right the situation and assuage this conviction, we have been engaged in a steady effort to give away the things that someone else might want and dispose of the rest.  How far will we go?  It is hard to imagine that we’ll go anywhere near as far as the believers in Acts 2, selling or giving everything away.  All I can say at this point is that the burden remains, and it hasn’t lessened appreciably yet.