Taking Care of Business

Mine!

It is one of the first words most children learn. You are mostly likely to hear it pronounced most forcefully when there is more than one toddler playing in a room full of toys. Invariably, one of the youngsters will choose a toy and start playing with it. Another child will notice, and make the move to claim it for himself.

Toddlers are not known for their negotiation skills. The second child either crawls or waddles up to the unsuspecting victim and grabs what he wants. Since he is under two, he is rarely successful. The other child senses the threat and tightens her grip on this toy, which has become the most prized item in the whole room. “Mine!” she says—emphatically and without hesitation or apology.

This lesson, learned early in life, often shapes our understanding of the place of most of the resources in our life. Whether we have toys, clothes, tools, cars, houses, or whatever; we feel a strong sense of personal ownership. Often this goes beyond just our physical possessions to include ideas, skills, relationships and time. It is easy to come to believe that the primary reason you have all that you have is so that you can enjoy life and achieve personal fulfillment. Of course, this leads to the mistaken idea that the more you have, the happier you will be; and so we commit ourselves to doing whatever it takes to get more—more that I can call “mine.”

To build spiritual champions we need to remind our children—and one another—that the resources over which we have control have been entrusted to us by God. God calls us to be good managers of these resources. Learning to be a good manager means learning how to effectively administer these resources for God’s purposes and in accordance with God’s principles. Spiritual champions know that they have been blessed in order to be a blessing to others.

While teaching children how to responsibly use the money they receive as gifts, allowance or wages from their work is important; we need to consider what we are doing to help them reflect on how they are managing God’s other resources. We also need to contemplate our own use of all we have. If we want to raise spiritual champions, stewardship has to become much more than a campaign we hold once a year to raise the money to fund the mission and ministry of the congregation. We must challenge one another to take better care of all the blessings of God.