My investments

Last night as I was doing what seemed like a never ending pile of dishes, making baby food, cleaning out the fridge & making my husbands lunch for the next day... I decided to listen to a sermon online.  I have just started doing this from time to time and have found it to be of great benefit (plus it makes all those boring jobs in the kitchen more enjoyable).  This past Sunday I missed most of the sermon at the church we have been attending, Redemption Gateway.  (I was walking the halls with C, as she is at that challenging age where she is too antsy to sit with me during the message... but I am not ready to leave her in the nursery.  I am quite certain she would be heart broken and inconsolable, so I'm not willing to try just yet.  I remind myself that it's just a temporary stage... )  Anyway, the message that Sunday was preached by Luke Simmons, the campus pastor.  You can find it here if you're interested.

The sermon was on stewardship.  How our lives are so brief... and nothing is really ours.  We're born with nothing and we leave with nothing.  What we have is God's, and we have the incredible responsibility to steward those things.  God has given us all time, talents, and treasures as investments.  Now this is not a new concept to me, but there were some parts of the message that really stood out to me.  We need to think about time not as something we spend (or something we never have enough of),  but as something we invest.  We must do it wisely. Same with our talents (giftings, strengths, etc.).  Then there are our treasures.  This can be money.  This can also be people.  Most people (Christians or otherwise) would rate their family as one of the most precious things in their life.  I know I do.  Have you ever thought of them as an investment?  God has given me a husband to partner with in this life.  He is a work in progress (just like me), and I have the responsibility to love and care for and invest in him.  Am I treating him like God's cherished son?  Whoa.  This was heavy to me.  Then there are our children.  Do I view them as God's children... entrusted to me to raise and love and teach?  They are not merit badges or cute little sidekicks.  They are treasures with beautiful souls.  They are investments.  Right now I spend most of the hours in my day feeding them, changing them, disciplining them, cleaning up after them, feeding them again and again.... (you get the idea).  Sometimes I think I lose my sanity temporarily.  But them I stop and remember, "They are investments."  Not only am I caring for them and training them so that they will become bright, successful, & Godly followers of Jesus. (And so that they will take care of me someday!)  I am caring for them because I am obeying the call of God by investing in them, and He expects me to take care of his children.  There are rewards that I will never see in this life.  God was the one who invented delayed gratification.  Eternal rewards are pretty much the epitome of that.  So here is my main point (if you are still with me here)...

If I really believe that I am earning the greater, eternal  reward by obeying God.... then that belief should dramatically change my attitude towards the time, talents, and treasures He has given me.


No more complaints. No more pity parties. No more pride. No more laziness.

My investments will pay off after this life.  Maybe sooner than I think.  And they are worth it.

"From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked."  
Luke 12:48