Street Lessons in Stewardship

His worn, baggy jeans and jacket looked dirty. By his graying hair, I judged early fifties, maybe slightly younger. He was holding a small cardboard sign that read, “God Bless you.” I wondered for a few moments what his life story was, what the events had been leading up to him taking up a post on this busy corner beneath the Ballard bridge.

I noticed the extra granola bar on my passenger seat and wondered if I should offer it to him. The light changed green and the car in front of me moved through the intersection. Any attempt to offer the bum breakfast now would not be well received by the line of traffic behind me. I moved through the intersection, and glanced at the digital clock on my car CD player. It read 10:58. I wasn’t worried. I knew of a spot I could park close to Mars Hill Church and run across the street in time to sit down before the band’s first song ended.

While waiting for a break in traffic, I glanced back down the block. He was still standing there. I could feel the granola bar staring up at me from its pocket in my bag, next to my Bible. Should I walk up the block and hand it to him? I thought. No, you shouldn’t, a girl once got raped under that bridge. It’s 11:00 in the morning, is there honestly any valid safety concern when there are dozens of people around? You’ll be late to church. It’s pretty inconvenient. Maybe he’ll still be there afterward, when I’m not in a hurry. Besides, one granola bar isn’t going to help anything. He needs more than a silly breakfast bar. Is he crisis homeless or chronic homeless or not homeless at all, and just taking advantage of people’s guilty consciences and generosity. STOP! Jesus, please teach me discernment when it comes to situations like this. 

I caught a break in traffic and walked into the sanctuary just in time to grab a seat before the band ended and Pastor Mark walked onto the stage. Mark greeted the congregation, prayed and introduced the sermon topic: Stewardship:God Gives. I found myself wishing I had taken the time to be late to church.

Throughout the next several hours, in his sovereign and gracious providence, Jesus revealed the deeper issues my heart had been struggling with and patterns of finding my security in wealth when it doesn’t even ultimately belong to me, patterns of feeling superior to the man on the corner.

Mark sums it up well in his sermon notes:

“Essential to the doctrine of stewardship is that everything ultimately belongs to God.  The great myths are that we own anything, that we deserve anything, that we can do anything good apart from God and that we are sovereign over our own lives. Nothing good that we have or do originates with us, it all comes from the hand of God as the Scriptures repeatedly and emphatically declare (Deuteronomy 8:17-18;Psalm 50:10; Haggai 2:8; James 1:16-18).”

A week later, I am still wrestling with these truths and the reality of how to walk in the fact that Christ is soveriegn and the only One solid enough for me to trust. I am not sure what I will do the next time I sense a prompting to share one of the blessings God has entrusted me with. My prayer is that I obey and give as God has given, generously.