Dear Stewardship Season,

I thought we had an agreement. I told you I needed some space. You said you understood. You said you'd wait for me to call. It really isn't you. It is me. I just need some time. Can you not understand that? Instead, you appear in full force in both the Old Testament and Gospel lessons? It is so not like you to be so pushy.

Sincerely,

Me <3

Here's the thing about the texts for this weekend. They have nothing to do with money. The oil, the meal, the money, they are all metaphors for something much larger; something much more important.

God wants everything from you. He wants your whole life: from Monday to Sunday and back again. He wants your relationships, he wants your work, he wants your mind, he wants your heart. He wants you to hand everything over to him, trusting that he we give you everything you need.

He wants you to purify yourself, to remove all the impurity, so that he's got all that's left for himself. But, just like the Pur filter on my refrigerator, you can probably only muster a 99.9% success rate in the purification department. And so, he wants you to hand over even the ugly stuff so that he can make you clean, make you whole, make you his.

That's all. Just everything. And in exchange, he offers life, abundant life, full life, joyous life. Seems a decent trade to me. So don't let stewardship season back into your life, let God back in. It is so much better to give him everything.