A Steward’s Growing Pains

Have you ever written a check or seen the charge on the credit card machine that had far too many zeros on it for your comfort?

The brakes finally give up on the car you were hoping to nurse through the season. The water heater dies on the coldest week of the year. A medical procedure wasn’t totally covered by insurance. We’ve all been here in this place, being asked to part with a not-so-small sum of money for a not-so-fun reason.

It’s a little easier to bear when you’re forking over dollar signs for a fun vacation or even a worthy cause like your child’s education. But when it’s something you weren’t expecting, something negative, that uneasiness in the pit of your stomach can quickly become despair.

The next time this happens to you, embrace it. Celebrate it. Wrap your arms around it and welcome it as a growing pain.

We are often asked, in life, to give more than we wish. Our loved ones demand greater patience than we think we have. Our prayer life is stalling, and we feel God isn’t holding up His end of the communication bargain. The daily grind seems to be grinding us down. We feel that uneasiness in the pit of our stomach, just as we do when we part with money we thought belonged solely to us.

That place of uncertainty propels us in life, in stewardship, in relationship. All forward motion comes from that feeling. Put out your hands and let yourself be thrust into the pit — He will stoop to take you out from the mud. Spread your arms on your cross — joy is waiting for you.

— Tracy Earl Welliver, MTS