Key Scripture:

Ecclesiastes 3:6b – “a time to keep, and a time to cast away;”

Devotional:

Conduit or cul-de-sac? If you’ve been at Eleven22 for a decent length of time, you’ve likely heard Pastor Joby use these words, getting at the question of whether you are a person whereby good things end on themselves or are a person whereby good things are multiplied and moved onto other people. It’s a tough question, and this can be a tough teaching. It gets at the idea of trust and the tensions between optimism and pessimism, frivolity and seriousness, expectancy and disbelief. This is a challenging enough concept when we are on our own, trying to become independent and self-sustaining while also trying to remain kind and trusting of the world around us. In marriage, this can get even tougher, melding two independent life experiences into one unified approach.

The idea of letting control go of my money and stuff has been hard for me over the years. Not that I have a huge love of money, but more than I have a fear of lacking it when needed. For me, it’s not so much that I need piles of ever-mounting stuff or ever-growing bank accounts, it’s that I wrestle with not being prepared for some future moment that I can’t predict, some future crisis I cannot solve, some future circumstance of which I cannot cope. I don’t like owning many things, and I don’t like the maintenance required to keep them up, but I do like the perception of security I try to find in my finances. Yet, that’s all it is – a perception, a limited one at that, seen through the eyes of the world rather than an eternal currency.

In the parable of the talents (Matthew 25), Jesus talks about this fear, citing the man who was given one talent and decided simply to hold onto it until his master returned. He believed he was doing right, and believed his master would be happy with him if he simply did his best to not lose the talent. He was afraid and therefore made the decision to not move, not invest, not be a conduit of his blessing but rather be a cul-de-sac. But in doing this, he allowed his master’s talent to become stagnant, only important to itself, to become useless. As a result, unlike those who invested their talents and trusted their master’s hand in them, this man was cast away, his talent given to those unafraid to use it and trusting of the blessings to come.

The practical challenge of “a time to keep, and a time to cast away” comes in attempting to figure out how or what that looks like. When am I supposed to “keep?” Is it when I am trying to build an emergency fund, save for my kids’ college education or put a down payment on a mortgage? Is that considered a reasonable thing to do? And when am I supposed to “cast away?” Is it when my house is finally full of stuff when I am compelled to tithe or sponsor a Compassion kid? The opportunities to do either end of this spectrum are endless. I cannot count the number of marriage arguments around these topics and the potential for misaligned priorities or poorly made decisions when trying to make them on our own understanding of what to keep and what to cast away. I will simply never be wise enough to know all those answers.

So, there really is only one solution to it: let God do the choosing, and let God pick the timing. Ask Him for direction. Ask Him for discernment. The reality is that 99 percent of everything we worry about rarely actually happens, at least not in the ways we anticipate. Yet, we worry about it. We wrestle with it. We fear it. We wonder when the rug is going to get pulled out from us rather than be expectant of how our master will continue to bless us. If you knew that the circumstance to come just might be one step of obedience away from the greatest circumstance of your life, how would that change what you keep and what you cast away?

Deepening questions:

• In your marriage, what are you holding on to out of fear? Is it how your money, vacation or calendar looks? What steps of obedience can you take as a couple to battle against that fear?
• How is the spirit of generosity in your marriage? Where can you be more generous with your time, attention and things?

Further reading:

Matthew 25:14-30, Matthew 6:25-33, 2 Corinthians 9:6-8