Invest

Invest

Before he left, he called together ten of his servants and divided among them ten pounds of silver, saying, “Invest this for me while I am gone.”

“MOM, IT WAS Fun Free Friday today. Marcus and I couldn’t find any free things, so we decided to go to Ms. Kruse’s house and ask her. We knew she’d help; she gave us freezies and donuts!”

An annual tradition, Fun Free Friday is where the cross-country team breaks into small groups and follows garage sale signs during their run. The goal is to bring the most interesting items from the garage sale “free” pile back to the coach. I smiled when I saw Lizzie and Marcus in the photos later posted in the Facebook group, holding up ten freezies and two packs of mini donuts. These two had clearly hit the jackpot by going to Ms. Kruse.

Karen is the music teacher at my daughter’s elementary school, and she loves her students with a firm hand and a generous heart. She invests in her students, in their families, and in our small community school in ways that blow me away. She offers piano lessons at a price her students can pay, she uses her personal resources to quietly meet needs, and she loves us all, issuing hugs to anyone who comes within hugging range. In the parable of the ten servants given silver and told to invest it, she is the servant who gets the gold star—the one who received a tenfold increase on the original investment.

When we think of investing, it doesn’t just mean in our finances. We have other resources available to invest as well. We have time, skill sets, talents, connections, experience, possessions. . . . All of these and more are tools we can use to invest in God’s Kingdom—the place for the best possible return on any of our investments.

Let us not fall into the comparison trap, measuring our resources against those of our siblings, neighbors, friends, or work colleagues. God asks us to take what we have and use it, invest it in others, share it generously with those around us. If we do that, we’ll be like the faithful servant in the parable who pleases his master by bringing in a tenfold increase on the original amount.

Lord, may we be wise stewards of our resources, investing in your Kingdom. Amen.

-Julie

One Good Step: Make a list of your resources —financial and otherwise. How can you make an investment today?