Honor the Lord with your substance and with the first fruits of all your produce. Proverbs 3:9
The best thing I’ve heard about stewardship came from Beth Scriven. A few years ago our Disciple 1 class was discussing stewardship of our time and resources, and many of us expressed a feeling that we simply did not have enough of these things. Not enough for ourselves or our families, and certainly not enough to give as much as away as we wished we could.
Beth said something that I will never forget. She said, “Here’s how I do it. I take it off the top.” She explained that she figured out that in order to make time for fun things she has to do them first thing on her day off, before errands and chores stand in the way. Then, there is always enough time. She said pledging to the church works the same way– if her pledge is deducted automatically at the beginning of each month, she doesn’t miss it.
This idea has transformed the way that I think about stewardship in all aspects of my life. Rick and I have begun to use the “take it off the top” principle to plan our leisure: exercise, time together, time with friends: we strive to take it all off the top, and somehow the laundry still gets done. Similarly, E-Giving takes our pledge “off the top” at the beginning of each month, and what remains is enough. It is a very concrete way of beginning to live into the Biblical call to offer our first fruits to God, or as Pete put so well in the last posting, to honor God with our substance, not just our excess.
I do not pretend to be consistently successful at this, not even most of the time. Very often giving my first fruits to God requires grappling with the fear that there will not be enough left. This fear often keeps me from giving, even when I know that I will regret it.
When I do manage to take Beth’s very good advice, I am surprised again and again by the abundance that is returned to me. Being more intentional about the way I spend my leisure has been good for body and soul, making me a better spouse and a more effective social worker. Committing more of my time and resources to our church community has yielded a stronger faith and abiding relationships. Suddenly, what’s left after I have given off the top is not simply enough, it is more.
Liz Rodems
Stewards in the Hands of a Loving God 
December 3, 2012 at 12:51 pm
What an excellent thought! (thank you Beth — and Liz for sharing it with those not present to hear the original comment). When thinking about our pledge this year, we were in the same-old “add 10% your pay increase this year to your current pledge” stuff when we heard about the medical care cost increases and thought — is there any way we could increase our pledge by $1K this coming year? If 35-40 pledges could do that, we’d be good-to-go! If 80 folks could increase by $500, same thing! By committing to the idea, I can find a way to make it happen. For our family, that’s about 2 lunches out/month at TGIF, something I can **happily** and healthily reduce! 🙂