A good friend of mine gave a talk at Church yesterday about stewardship. Many people in the Catholic Church equate stewardship with tithing. They often forget it goes beyond the money to our time and our talents. Its all about sharing the gifts we have been given with others. Ted came from a different perspective and it was well received and it was easily related to our own lives.
Ted spoke about the love we feel for others, spouses, children, parents and friends. He talked about the sacrifices we make of our time daily. How we run them from place to place, we listen to them and do everything we can to help them in any way. So many times we don’t want to do the things we do, but we do it all because we love them. Every parent can relate to that. He is a parent to 4 children just like me. He feels the financial strain of Catholic Education, he has one in a Catholic grade school, two in a Catholic High School and one in a private university. As Catholic parents we sacrifice because we love our children.
He compared the love we have for our loved ones to the love we have for God and our faith community. We don’t always want to go to that parish council meeting, work another fish fry, or work the picnic. We can’t always afford to tithe and we don’t have much time to give back. But because we love God we do those things and most of the time we end up enjoying it.
So, in your life what do you do for the love of your family and friends? What sacrifices do you make? Now, think about what you do for the love of God? What sacrifices do you make to give back the gifts He has given to you? Today, think of a way to give your love to God like you do for your family and friends. It doesn’t have to be a huge step, just commit to taking a step.
Wow! My Ted! I guess he impressed you 🙂 How special to see his talk as the focus for your blog! Thanks, Lori, for reiterating what he said.
The things we do for love! I truly appreciated Ted’s talk. He reiterated a belief I hold dear, a lesson I have tried to impart on my children – “when you really love someone you put their needs before your own.” I frequently say “it’s easy”, but sometimes it’s not – yet we do it any way. Ted’s analogy of our church community as family and stewardship as our opportunity to put love of God before our selves was splendid. What will you do for love of God?