Today’s 333 Devotional: “When Ownership Goes Unquestioned”

When Mark McGwire hit his season making home run, it landed outside Chicago’s Wrigley field where a crowd was waiting for the possibility that the ball might come their way. Well, the ball came flying over the fence and everyone started piling upon each other. When the police arrived and separated this enthusiastic group of people, the person who came out of the pile with the ball was served papers from another member of that crowd who claimed that the ball was taken out of his hands. A bite on his hand was exhibit A.

But think about it with me. Neither of these guys did anything for that ball, and neither bought a ticket to see the game. They hadn’t thrown the ball, nor did they hit the ball, but both sought legal possession. McGwire who had hit it may have claimed rights to it, or the league who purchased the ball. And so, these two men fought a physical and legal battle over an object which in the truest sense of the word wasn’t theirs to begin with.

In a sense, the same thing is true concerning the rich man in Jesus’s parable of the Rich Fool. For all his excitement about what he had received, never once was there any consideration for the Giver. He saw himself as the sole possessor and proprietor. He considered everything he had as his own personal possession, and there was no consciousness of this dependence upon God.

The Apostle James said, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.” (James 1:17)

Douglas Beyer said, “Life is a stewardship, not an ownership.” Whatever we have, God has entrusted to our care. We have no outright ownership of anything, and when we fail to recognize that, it is a sign that we’re finding our satisfaction in the accumulation, and not in God.