The other day I was tidying up my home office, and I ran across an issue of Light & Life (the Free Methodist monthly magazine) from 2009. I wondered what reason there might be for keeping that particular issue. A quick glance at the table of contents helped me realize why it had been meaningful enough for me to keep.
The theme of that issue centered on God’s economy, focusing on ownership, radical generosity, and our response to the needs of the world. I wasn’t surprised that I found something worth keeping in that issue of Light & Life, because I see so many fine examples of Godly “economists” in the lives of Oakdale supporters. Friends of Oakdale, you have helped shape my own personal commitment to stewardship and have helped encourage me to follow a biblical view of ownership.
The articles in that 2009 issue of Light & Life connected to something I read recently in Eugene Peterson’s book, As Kingfishers Catch Fire. In one chapter, he reflects on Isaiah 6:1-13 and Revelation 1:4-10:
Worship is not just a personal relationship with God…The world is included… We bring our offerings as a kind of down payment in God’s work. For us it is usually money. In earlier times it was more likely to be animals or food. Someone would bring a goat and tie it to the leg of the communion table. Another would bring a bunch of carrots. A man would place a shovel beside the table, a sign that he was ready to dig a ditch.
Today our economy is primarily a money economy, but the money is stored up energy that can now be put to work in other lives. We declare our readiness, our obedience. Here am I; send me.
Whether you have invested your “stored up energy” at your local church, in missions, at Oakdale, or anywhere God has directed you to give, you are participating in God’s great economy where all His work is accomplished.
Indeed, many have already given so that soon we can begin May Hall, our new dining hall. There is much “energy” stored and ready to use as soon as possible, and we can’t wait to release that energy!
