Stewardship is fun if we make it so. It is a serious game relating to life. It has many of the same entertaining features found in competitive sports, but the opponent is really in each of our own persons. The score isn’t kept by the number of times an inflated bladder is carried by strong men over a goal line, or athletic women can serve aces on a tennis court. The game is fraught with patience in the participant, some sacrifice to get into the game, some wins and some losses, wisdom related to markets, costs, discipline, budgets, percentages, affirmations and negations, values and shopping. The list, like do many, may also be extended. The evidence of a person’s stewardship informs us with strong validity what a person really is relative to wisdom, faith, management, responsibility, learning, perceptions, responsibility, and values. There are other lesser, but important factors in the analysis. The stories are innumerable relative to success and/or failure of families when mates agree or disagree on the management of their incomes and property. It is believed by many that money-matters may account for the leading cause for divorce in America. That may be too simple belief. Problems are deeper in context than their illustrations. Stewardship is a major theme of Scripture so must be important for the maturing individual who means to function effectively in the real world, and enjoy life that includes stewardship performance. That performance may mean turning management over to the most trusted and effective person in the family who will follow guidelines for faithful stewardship to self, family and God. Stewardship is so much more than the tithe, or some other formula, that persons may dedicate to God. The tithe is just one factor in formulas of stewardship. The implication of the tithe is that we also determine percentages as a guiding factor. For example, what percentage of my time is devoted to this or that? We can plan life well by it.
Early in my professional life I discovered how much of my ministry and counseling related to the management of money in families, and its meaning to the formation of persons and relationships. Persons doing rather well on their jobs and gaining excellent educational growth sometimes seemed stupid about working through a budget, or gaining some effective theoretical approach. Some find it, and may fail to keep it. With some enthusiasm and my own situation pressing on me I launched into review of biblical counsel on the matter, and found that it worked. I felt that the implication of the Scripture was not on counting dollars, but in counting through percentages. If Scripture suggested a tithe (10%) from a people in the wilderness with no extensive evidence of future plenty, I would also tithe (10%) to myself and live off the 80% – which after the giving/saving deductions then became 100% of spendable income. My wife had eight little yellow cans, and divided the remaining cash funds according to percentages to food, rent, clothing, transportation as necessities, and anything left-over for the other items with recreation or vacation funds last. From year to year the percentages changed. When costs were increasing and income was not, the problem was addressed in taking on other work, in shifting percentage accents, doing without, and my wife working for periods when the family costs exceeded the low income that church related institutions afforded in those days. We received fifteen dollars weekly in my first church assignment, and paid for house rent out of that income. We kept our budget so to avoid debt, and to focus on the care of our children. I carried two appointments. We had four children and took in others in the family, and adults during downturns they suffered in the vagaries of life. The ace in the matter was to avoid debt, even when modest debt pressed in. Our first home meant incurring a debt, but the home collateral justified it. How did matters turn out in the slow growth to improved income? The first aid to our situation was that we are Christians and prayerful. In the spirit of Scripture, the costly habits, distractions with recreational privileges, appeals to accumulations beyond our competence to fund them, and the like were managed. Work followed with energy and faithfulness, met our needs. We did not fuss about low income, or inadequate consideration of employers, and like negatives, so to give affirmative attitude for our children and focus on important matters above material concerns. Our life affirmations worked for us. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020