Daily Devotional: Generosity & Stewardship: Faithful with Little

OPEN HANDS

“Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.”
Luke 16:10

REFLECTION

One of the most common reasons people give for not being more generous is that they do not have enough yet. When I have more, I will give more. When the debt is paid off. When the kids are through college. When I reach a certain income level. When things are more stable. The generosity is coming, just not quite yet, because right now the amount seems too small to make a difference anyway.

• But the amount has never been the point.
• The faithfulness is the point.
• What we do with a little reveals what we would do with a lot.
• And the person who is not generous with a small income rarely becomes generous when the income grows.

Jesus watched people give at the temple treasury one day and called His disciples over to watch a widow drop in two small coins worth almost nothing in monetary terms. And He said she had given more than all the wealthy donors combined, because she had given out of her poverty while they had given out of their surplus. The amount was tiny. The faithfulness was extraordinary. And Jesus noticed.

Faithful stewardship does not wait for a threshold to be crossed. It starts now, with what is in your hand today. The person who tithes faithfully on a modest income is building something in their character that will be there when the income grows. The person who gives their time generously when they have little of it is practicing an orientation that will shape how they handle abundance. Faithfulness with little is not a lesser version of stewardship. It is the real thing, perhaps even more purely than faithfulness with much.

God sees the two coins. He has always seen the two coins. And He honors the faithfulness behind them in ways that the large gift given from surplus and self-congratulation will never receive.

Are you waiting for a certain level of income, stability, or abundance before you begin practicing genuine generosity, and what would it look like to start being faithful with what is in your hand right now, however small it seems?

PRAYER

Lord, we confess that we have sometimes used our limitations as an excuse to delay faithfulness. We have told ourselves the amount is too small to matter and the timing is not quite right and generosity will come later when things are different. Today we reject that reasoning. You see the two coins. You honor the faithful heart behind the small gift. Teach us to be faithful with what we have right now. That is where stewardship actually begins. Amen.