2025 December news-letter article

Greetings friends,

In recent weeks, we have thought a lot about the biblical principle of stewardship.  I do hope you have loved (half as much as I do) the illustration of the keys to the gate of the city walls of Edinburgh, Scotland!  I’ve challenged us all to think of ourselves as the Lord Provost, the “little man” with the velvet pillow, who, every summer offers back to the king of Scotland (and England) his keys upon the pillow.

My father used to work for Winn-Dixie, a grocery store; he was the manager of the Dairy & Frozen Food department, and later the Assistant Manager of a store.  Between those two roles, he was the “third man” (I always love asking him about his various vests of different colors!), at which point, he became a “key holder”.  In many a retail store, “key holders” are in positions of authority, because they have the responsibility of opening or closing the store.  They have financial responsibility to close the registers, perhaps they manage inventory, or over-see other staff.  “Key holders” must be worthy of trust.

My challenge to us: what “keys” do we hold?  Most of us have a decent education; we hold a decent intellect.  Do we hold relationships and networks that we can leverage?  Do we have physical bodies, of which, most parts work properly, most days?  Do we hold real estate, and homes, and vehicles, and bank accounts?  Do we have jobs, with pay checks?  Do we have work days free now because we are retired?  Do we have less busy weekends now that the kids are out of the house?  Do you have Tuesday evenings free after bowling season ends (yes, I am that cool!)?  Do you have musical talents to share?  Are you good at business management, or marketing and communications, or cooking, or sales, or accounting?  Do you have gifts of hospitality, or encouragement, or teaching, or are you really good at handling kids?  Is it possible that we are all holding more “keys” than we first realized?

As we have seen, in Job, and Psalm 107, and Malachi, and Luke recently, stewardship involved money / material possessions, but it certainly includes more than that.  Yes, stewardship includes giving, but it also includes taking care.  How can you give of your time, talent, and treasure to serve within our church?  How can you give to serve beyond our church?  How can you nurture and protect these gifts from God, to leave things better than you found them?  How can you reduce your waste footprint, to better steward limited resources, and steward God’s creation?  How can you leverage all these gifts, “keys”, to glorify God?  Did you know that the greatest way to glorify God is to use your gifts to bless others?

Did you know that the most precious “key” we hold is the Good News?  Are you being the steward of this gift God would have you to be?  Are you protecting it (guarding doctrine, biblical fidelity)?  Are you nurturing it (cultivating a relationship with God in your heart daily)?  Are you living it out, being the light of the world Jesus calls us to be?  Are you walking humbly, obediently, in the process of sanctification?  Are you sharing this Good News with our neighbors to who so desperately need to hear it?  Are you hoarding the Good News to yourself, or are you leveraging this gift to bless others?  Is your commitment to missions and evangelism, evidence that you are indeed a trust-worthy steward of the Good News?

I confess to you, I don’t think I have written so many questions in any essay or paper, EVER before.  I freely acknowledge that I have more questions than answers here, but I hope these questions challenge you, because they have challenged me in recent weeks.  I have tried to be a good “stock boy” (which my father was at the grocery store), learning that I am holding way more “keys” than I knew a few months ago.  Counting these “keys” has driven me to my knees in recent weeks, realizing that I have more reasons to be thankful, more and more and more.  When my spiritual posture is in this place, it’s then that the King of kings seems to whisper to me “I return these keys, being perfectly convinced that they cannot be placed in better hands than those of the Lord Provost and Councillors of my good City”.  May our hands be the trust-worthy hands of a faithful steward God would have them to be!

Bring ye all the tithes into the store-house, all your money, talents, time, and love,
consecrate them all upon the altar while your Savior from above speaks sweetly
“trust Me, try Me, prove Me” saith the Lord of hosts “and see
if a blessing, unmeasured blessing, I will not pour out on thee!”
--A.J.