By Doug Inglish
I used to live in Minnesota, billed as the Land of 10,000 Lakes. That was a PR gimmick. The truth is, there are more than 11,800 lakes if you make the cutoff 10 acres. If you bring it down to 5 acres, it’s almost incalculable. Alaska has more than 3.2 million lakes; although, they cheat by being roughly seven and a half times the size of Minnesota, but I digress.
Then I came to Colorado and learned about ditch rights. You probably know all about that, but for the newcomers, that is the right to water that comes upon land you own. And not just the water in a river or canal passes through your property. You may not own the rain that falls onto the roof of your house.
In Minnesota, the very thought of determining who owns the rain is baffling, while in Colorado they argue, sometimes in court and at times with arms drawn, over water ownership. One look at comparable water bills between the two states tells the story. And yet people in both places have the same needs for water. We all shower, cook, wash the car, and hydrate after exercise. It is not any more or less useful to the citizens of one state over the other. So, what’s the big difference?
Scarcity. If you have a lot of something, its value is relatively diminished. If it’s in short supply, the value goes up.
That being the case, if a resident of Pueblo offers to let the neighbors do the laundry in her house while their washing machine is broken, she is making a bigger sacrifice to help a friend in need than her counterpart in Duluth. The difference may not be so large that it catches your attention, but scarcity of any commodity helps to define level of sacrifice in sharing that commodity.
People who have lots of money can (and often do) shower their children with the things that money can buy. For them, it might not be much of a sacrifice because they don’t have the same scarcity of money that another family may have. But time might be a commodity of genuine scarcity for them. Spending time with children could be where the real sacrifice takes place.
And don’t think for a second that even young ones can’t see what’s going on. Buying your kid a bike might not make a dent in your finances, but going biking with your kid could require genuine sacrifice. If You do the former but neglect the latter, you send a message to them about how much you really value them. Is it enough to sacrifice what is scarce?
Of course, it can work the other way too. I went to college with a guy who said his dad was always around, they spent a lot of time playing catch and fishing, and he never missed a birthday or a school play. But he had zero respect for his father because he made no effort to find or hold a job. There was a lot of time for riding, but no money for a bike.
Whether there is plenty of money and no time, or lots of time and no money, generosity is expressed through the sacrifice of whatever commodity is in short supply. Finding a balance can be hard, but there is great reward in making the effort.
This is as true when it comes to sacrificing for the mission of the church. All of our resources—our time, our finances, our abilities—are precious commodities that bring great blessings when we offer them in service to the Lord. A balanced approach to placing these resources in God’s hands often means giving to Him that which is scarce to us. If it does not, then nothing has been sacrificed. If we value something, we will sacrifice for it. I pray that you value the mission enough to give what is needed, and I know that such sacrifice is always rewarded in one way or another.
—Doug Inglish is RMC vice president for administration and stewardship director. Photo by Todd Rhines of Unsplash.
