The Controversial Cookies

A traveler, between flights at an airport, went to a lounge and bought a small package of cookies. Then she sat down and began reading a newspaper. Gradually, she became aware of a rustling noise. From behind her paper, she was flabbergasted to see a neatly dressed man helping himself to her cookies. Not wanting to make a scene, she leaned over and took a cookie herself. 

A minute or two passed, and then came more rustling. He was helping himself to another cookie! After a while they came to the end of the package with one cookie left, but she was so angry she didn’t dare allow herself to say anything. Then, as if to add insult to injury, the man broke the remaining cookie in two, pushed half across to her, ate the other half, and left. 

Still fuming sometime later when her flight was announced, the woman opened her handbag to get her ticket. To her shock and embarrassment, there she found her package of unopened cookies!

Reader’s Digest

The Crucial Importance of Stewarding the Gift

The story is well known in the family: my grandparents had driven up from California the evening before. Stopping at a gas station along the Oregon border, they purchased some snacks, gas, and, as they often did, a lottery ticket. Thinking little of it, they stuffed the ticket in a pocket and continued journeying north. At their hotel that night, Grandpa stayed up to watch the news. The lottery numbers were to be announced. As the numbers were picked from a whirling globe of balls, the first number matched. And the second number. Then the third number.

At this point, he shakes Grandma awake. She wipes her eyes as they watch the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh numbers match. All seven numbers. Jaws dropped. Their minds could not ascertain what had transpired in just a few short seconds. Unimaginable. Unthinkable. How much did they win? What does this mean? The host announced the winning amount. That night, Grandma and Grandpa won $4.6 million. After a sleepless night, they drove to our home and placed the lottery ticket on our dining-room table.

The winnings helped our family in profound ways. Debts were paid. Vacations were had. Tuitions were covered. But the story has a dark side. A profound gift that created momentary bliss eventually led to bickering, infighting, and anger in the family. After nearly fifty years of marriage, Grandma and Grandpa’s marriage ended. Family members stopped talking. And a cold bitterness took over. I don’t retell this difficult story to shame a single soul. By the grace of God, healing and reconciliation has begun in our family. Yet the fact remains: no one knew how to steward such a gift.

 A. J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World, Baker Publishing Group, 2018, Kindle Location 109-116.

The Elderly Contractor

An elderly master carpenter was ready to retire. He told his employer of his plans to leave the house building business and live a more leisurely life with his wife enjoying his extended family.

He would miss the paycheck, but he needed to retire. They could get by. The contractor was sorry to see his good worker go and asked if he could build just one more house as a personal favor. The carpenter said yes, but in time it was easy to see that his heart was not in his work. He resorted to shoddy workmanship and used inferior materials. It was an unfortunate way to end his career.

When the carpenter finished his work and the builder came to inspect the house, the contractor handed the front-door key to the carpenter. “This is your house,” he said, “my gift to you.”

Source Unknown 

Finding Happiness

Have you ever heard the story of the mother who wanted to teach her daughter a moral lesson? She gave the little girl a quarter and a dollar for church “Put whichever one you want in the collection plate and keep the other for yourself,” she told the girl.

When they were coming out of church, the mother asked her daughter which amount she had given. “Well,” said the little girl, “I was going to give the dollar, but just before the collection the man in the pulpit said that we should all be cheerful givers. I knew I’d be a lot more cheerful if I gave the quarter, so I did.”

Source Unknown

Leaving It Behind

A wealthy plantation owner invited John Wesley to his home. The two rode their horses all day, seeing just a fraction of all the man owned. At the end of the day the plantation owner proudly asked, “Well, Mr. Wesley, what do you think?” After a moment’s silence, Wesley replied, “I think you’re going to have a hard time leaving all this.”

Randy Alcorn, Money, Possessions, and Eternity: A Comprehensive Guide to What the Bible Says about Financial Stewardship, Generosity, Materialism, Retirement, Financial Planning, Gambling, Debt, and More, Tyndale Press, 2011.

One Less Responsibility

A distraught man furiously rode his horse up to John Wesley, shouting, “Mr. Wesley, Mr. Wesley, something terrible has happened. Your house has burned to the ground!” Weighing the news for a moment, Wesley replied, “No. The Lord’s house burned to the ground. That means one less responsibility for me.”

Randy Alcorn, Money, Possessions, and Eternity: A Comprehensive Guide to What the Bible Says about Financial Stewardship, Generosity, Materialism, Retirement, Financial Planning, Gambling, Debt, and More, Tyndale Press, 2011.

Preaching on the Same Topic

John Chrystostom was an early church father and Bishop of Constantinople from 347-407. The name “Chrysostom” is not a surname, but rather an epithet “golden tongued,” given to him because of his excellent preaching. But this did not keep him from angering some of his followers after he developed a proclivity to preach regularly on the subject of giving. When criticisms began to mount, Chrystostom refused to back down, and instead began incorporating the criticisms into his sermons (don’t get any ideas here, though fellow pastors!). John would go on to argue that even if his critics attained perfection in their Christian walk with respect to giving and love, then, John argued…he still wouldn’t stop preaching on giving for fear they would give the discipline up. 

In reality, John observed a truth that Martin Luther would propose around a thousand years later: 

People go through three conversions: The conversion of their head, their heart, and their pocketbook. Unfortunately, not all at the same time.

And so, if the church remained unhappy with his choice of subjects, they ought to complain, not to him, but to themselves for not living in such a way that he could focus on other subjects. He suggested with a word of cunning, “For indeed you do the same in blaming me, as if a little child, hearing often of the first letter of the alphabet and not learning it, were to blame its teacher, because the teacher is continually and forever reminding the child about it.” “Therefore, let us give as if giving to Christ” was the cornerstone of John’s preaching, a reminder not just to his reluctant congregation, but to ours as well.

Stuart Strachan Jr.