Stewardship

My house is connected to a common area managed by our meager home-owner's association. (Dues are cheap.) Because I failed to really check the property line, I mowed the part of the common area connected to my lawn last year, and I've done it again this year.

As I was mowing last week, I thought that stewardship in many respects is simply taking ownership of things that don't really belong to you.

We are all beggars

When we present the gospel to others, it is never as a bread seller handing free bread to a beggar. It is as beggars to beggars, telling others where the bread of life may be found.

Renewed Appreciation

I hope to resume posting here on a more regular basis. I was out in Iceland for the past ten days or so for a much-needed vacation.

It is a beautiful country, combining all the desolation of the north with rich beauty I've never really experienced.

As the trip wore on, the beauty became more commonplace, and I found myself realizing that one of the effects of the curse is that we have lost the ability for renewed appreciation. We ask ourselves, "Won't heaven be boring?" We find all the things we enjoy lose their luster over time: nothing remains qualitatively new to us. We pursue youth in looks, newness in fashion and gadgetry...and we rarely realize, I think, that the things God has given us to enjoy become old precisely because we are too broken for their newness to remain.

I can't wait for a time when all things are new—including my ability to appreciate them.