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Being a good steward

After my parents moved to Korea, my taste for flying diminished greatly. Something about being stuck in a confined space and sitting on your butt for 14+ hours does NOT appeal to me. Although I hate flying, one thing that makes the experience a little better is the airline carrier. Asian airlines just have a different expectation of customer service, and the World Airline Awards say it all.

Today's Bible reading was from Malachi 3, the well-known passage about tithing. Given my very cautious money saving tendencies, the concept of budgeting never really crossed my mind until a few months ago when I started my first full-time job and became financially independent. I remember talking with Moses once and one website he shared with me about money management while giving to God's Kingdom really left an impression.

When I think about good stewardesses on my favorite airline, a couple things stand out: They don't just do the bare minimum--the bare minimum that i expect when flying is that i get from point A to point B safely, and on-time. But good stewardesses are always looking for ways to serve me, and to maximize my happiness (asking if my coat should be hung, offering an extra pillow, even providing seat stickers to indicate if i'd like to be woken up for a meal).

When I think about being a good steward for God, I wonder if I'm really going that second mile.. Am I really willing to do anything and everything to give him pleasure, or am I just doing the minimum to meet the federal regulations? God promises in v10 that if I bring to him what I have, he will "throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that (i) will not have enough room for it."

Being able to give this year (aka actually having the income to give) has been SUCH a tremendous JOY and hands-down my favorite aspect about working life. Even though it wasn't much, if God hadn't given me the opportunity to support a sister to go to Chile for short-term missions or a pastor's family in their first year as missionaries, I would have missed out BIG time--missed out on knowing my small investment was a part of the healing, freedom, and miracles that God performed. God didn't need me but man what a privilege it was to be able to give and to be used. LORD help me to be a good steward of the gifts you have given me, and continue to show me that it is forsURE a bigger blessing to give than to receive.

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