I was born and raised in very rural Illinois. There were only two Catholic churches in the county, one of which was a mission. If you were not a farmer, you probably provided some kind of service to farmers.
Throughout the county there were grain bins, some owned by the government. I was learning to read and I thought some of the bins stored “BUTTER.” Actually they stored grain there, but the bins were marked “BUTLER,” the company that built them, and I misread the name as “butter.”
At that time and throughout my growth years those agricultural storage bins were the only storage facilities in the entire county, but now when I go home, there are multiple storage units on the edge of every small town — for what? What is everyone storing? And why? These storage facilities seem to be a phenomenon of the past 30 years.
And to be sure, some people probably have the need and the necessity of storing things. Nevertheless, we do, as stewards, need to ask ourselves what we are storing and for what reason? Jesus made it clear in so many ways that we need to separate what is important from what we think is important.
Stewardship is not easy. The Lord never said it was or that it would be. Whether we know it or not, we are totally reliant upon God for our lives and our sustenance. To understand and embrace stewardship as a way of life is to recognize that simple fact and to live it out.
