“The person who is trustworthy in very small matters is also trustworthy in great ones.” (Luke 16:10)
As a carpenter, Jesus was familiar with woodworking tools: what they were good for, how to use and care for them. In this reading, he speaks about another kind of tool: money. It’s not the only tool, nor even the most important tool. It’s just a tool, like a hammer or a saw. And just as Jesus learned how to use each tool in the carpentry shop, we too have to learn how to use this tool, money.
Most of us can count money, make simple change, and tender it to buy necessities. But Jesus says it’s for more than that. Learn to use it to make friends or build the Church. Learn to be trustworthy with however little or much you have. If you have no income, if you’ve lost your house, if you can barely afford groceries, God knows that. God is reasonable. If you don’t have a tool, he doesn’t expect you to use it! He also knows that many of us do have this tool, and he wants us to use it wisely.
Think about a hammer. You use it for specific purposes at specific times, and then you put it away until the next time. In between, if you’re like most people, you don’t think about it at all. Similarly, money is meant to be a tool to help us. Beyond the necessary use and maintenance of it, can you put it in your “tool chest” and not think about it?
It is an issue of the heart. Using money should not make you fearful. Thinking habitually that you don’t have enough for yourself, and worrying about what will happen if you were to give some away have no place in the heart of a child of God. That’s how orphans think.
You are not an orphan. You have a very rich Father in heaven! Let that truth penetrate deep into your heart. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you how best to use your money. And as you use it as the tool God intends, watch for “the profit that accrues to your account” (Philippians 4:17)—the spiritual grace, wisdom, and blessing that flow from the throne of God.
“Holy Spirit, clean up my thinking about money. Help me to see it as the tool it is and to use it in the ways that you intend.”
Philippians 4:10-19; Psalm 112:1-2, 5-6, 8-9