WHO AND WHAT OWNS YOU?
Mark S. Roberti 
Director of Stewardship & Development, Heartland Parishes of Ellis County

In order to promote stewardship, we have given it programmatic elements.  We talk about time (prayer), talent (ministry), and treasure (money).  We talk about sharing and giving.  We talk about discipleship.  We talk about family.  All are wonderful elements to promote.  But the unasked question is, who and what owns you?  What are those selfish things that you value and that you simply don’t want to give up? And if those things are more important than your relationships with  God, your Church,  and your family, then who owns you?

It is your security? Your comfort? Your freedom? Your social status?  Your intellectual pride? What is it?  For each of us it is probably a different thing, or combination of things…but it’s out there.  It’s got us, and it’s a serious impediment to our individual relationships with God.

I remember learning about the “law of diminishing returns” in my first college economics course.  Adding laborers increased output.  Initially, output was increased dramatically.  But, as more laborers were added, it got to the point that each laborer’s output was diminished.  Then it diminished to the point that adding additional laborers actually got to be counterproductive.  Laborers were in each other’s way.

I think that’s the same with whatever it is that “owns” us.  At first, it was probably a good thing.  But we’ve accumulated so much of it that accumulating  more just doesn’t bring us a proportionate increase in satisfaction.  Nevertheless, we still keep adding.  We keep hoping that it’s going to provide us with a sense of fulfillment.  We add to the point that it actually holds us captive.  In fact, we no longer own it; it owns us.  We become junkies.  What started off as a good thing becomes a vice…and now, we just can’t shake it.  It directs our whole lifestyle.

One of C.S. Lewis’ books is called the Great Divorce.  In this story, the guy has a serpent on his back.  The serpent is really nothing other than his own weakness and lack of self-discipline.  The more he feeds the serpent, the more it dictates to him, the more it controls him.  Eventually, however, he musters the courage to starve the serpent.  Then, an amazing thing happens.  He is able to pull the serpent off his back and subjugate it.  The serpent turns into a powerful stallion that he mounts and rides into the horizon.  Stewardship is that “serpent turned stallion.”  It will not only take us into the horizon, it will takes us to heaven.

Stewardship is disciplining yourself to live a holy way of life. It turns takers into givers.

Starve the serpent.  It’s going to take some time, but you will mount that stallion too.  Start by giving God your gratitude.  Worship Him rather than those things in this life that you value.  Soon, God will own you.  Just as it was meant to be from the beginning of time.