StewardLife Lesson 38

STORY

When I was in grade school my cousin showed me a pen he said was made to commemorate the maiden voyage of the USS Nautilus. It was solid silver, in the shape of a torpedo, with an 18-karat gold propeller. He said it was actually made aboard the sub and only a few dozen were given as gifts to selected officers. How he got it, I can't recall. I can't even say today whether the pen was genuine. However, just the fact that I remember it means it was impressive. If genuine, imagine what that pen would be worth today!

Contrast that story with what my Sunday school superintendent told us. He was a successful and wealthy businessman. As a layperson, he had respect and influence second only to the pastor in our congregation. "I never bought a pencil in my life," he often told us. "I find them on the street and on the floor everywhere." As children, we concluded, correctly or incorrectly, that it was such frugality that made him rich.

It is reported that in the early days of the space program, the United States invested millions of dollars to invent a pen that would allow astronauts to write upside down and in the weightlessness of space. The Soviet Union just gave its cosmonauts pencils.

INSIGHT OUT

What's the point? In the world today, sometimes low tech and simple is ignored. Do you pay attention only to complex solutions to problems? Has your cultural training made you ignore God's simple blessings and look only for the dramatic, the large, the expensive? God gives lots of pencils. In fact, as you look around, you can observe blessings ignored by others--cast aside--because they are not significant. Like pennies (or pencils) on the sidewalk, they are not worth anyone's attention. But by not picking up your pencils, are you, correctly or incorrectly, missing out on becoming rich?

EXERCISE

Start today and for the next week pick up every pencil you find on the floor or on the street. Pick up every penny you see on the sidewalk or in the parking lot.