New Monmouth Musings: On Being a Good Steward

Dear Friends,

Her name was Bertha Adams, and she was 71 years old. I first learned about her in a message I heard from the pulpit while pastoring in Fort Lauderdale. She died alone on Easter Sunday in West Palm Beach, not far from where I was serving on staff at Calvary Chapel, Fort Lauderdale. Years later, I read the details of her death in Chuck Swindoll’s The Finishing Touch. The coroner’s report read “Cause of death . . . malnutrition.” She had wasted away to just fifty pounds.

When the state authorities made their preliminary investigation of Mrs. Adam’s home, “they found a veritable pigpen . . . the biggest mess you could imagine.” One seasoned inspector declared he’d never seen a dwelling in greater disarray. The woman had begged food from neighbors’ back doors and gotten what clothing she had from the Salvation Army. From all outward appearances she was a penniless recluse, a pitiful and forgotten widow. But such was not the case.

Amid the jumble of her unclean, disheveled belongings, the officials found two keys to safe-deposit boxes at two different local banks. In the first box was over 700 AT&T stock certificates, plus hundreds of other valuable certificates, bonds, and solid financial security, not to mention a stack of cash amounting to nearly $ 200,000. The second box contained $ 600,000. Adding the net worth of both boxes, they found well over a million dollars.

Charles Osgood, reporting the story on CBS radio announced that the estate would probably go to a distant niece and nephew, neither of whom dreamed their aunt had a thin dime to her name. The Finishing Touch, Charles Swindoll, p. 448

When I heard and then read this story a number of years ago, my thoughts turned to a passage of Scripture that I had never noticed before. I had been reading in Ecclesiastes and came across Ecc. 6:3 and read, “A man may have a hundred children and live many years; yet no matter how long he lives, if he cannot enjoy his prosperity and does not receive proper burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he.”

All of this got me to thinking about the wealth and stewardship of one’s possessions. How sad to have amassed all that money, and yet to have never shared it with others. How tragic to have riches and a long life, and yet live so wrapped up in yourself that you never think of how you might provide for the needs of others. It reminds me of what Solomon said” “Better a little with the fear of the Lord than great wealth with turmoil.” Proverbs 15:16

I shall never forget the words of the great saint Corrie Ten Boom who said on a tape on stewardship I was listening to (some of you may not even remember tape recordings) “I have learned to hold on to things loosely because when I hold on to them too rightly, it hurts when the Master has to pry open my fingers.” Would that all of us learn that great lesson of stewardship.

“It is possible to give away and become richer. It is also possible to hold on too tightly and lose everything. Yes, the liberal man shall be rich! By watering others, he waters himself. “(Proverbs 11:24-25 TLB)

Yes, when our fingers start squeezing our money too tightly, it may be time to gaze into heaven and be reminded from where all our “riches” come.

Yours in faith,

Pastor Tom