We All Need to Do Our Part to Meet the Needs

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Are we doing our part? Often when we think of stewardship we focus on the rich person, the person with lots of money, the millionaire. We expect those individuals to carry the load for everyone else. In reality we are all called to faithful stewardship: the millionaire, the middle class family and the poor widow.

A story is told of a man who was harvesting logs for a saw mill. After a rain, the truck carrying the logs to the mill got stuck in a muddy ditch. After several tries the driver realized he needed help to free the truck. The driver walked down the road where he found a farm house. He found the farmer and explained the situation. The farmer declared, “I have a mule that can do the job.”

They traveled to the truck and hitched the mule, Blue, to the truck. When all was ready, the farmer yelled, “Pull, Blue! Pull!” After several attempts the truck remained stuck. Then the farmer yelled again, “Pull, Blue!” but this time the farmer added, “Pull, Mack!” and “Pull, Clyde!”

Ol’ Blue dug his hooves into the road, strained mightily, and soon the truck was out of the mud.

The truck driver was confused. “Why did you call out the names of two other mules besides Blue?” he asked.

Smiling, the farmer said, “Well, Blue is blind, but I knew that when he thought he was pulling alone he could not do the job, but when he thought Mack and Clyde were pulling with him, he was encouraged to pull all the more. So now your truck is out of the ditch.”

The message in the story relates to stewardship. No one of us can meet all the needs of the diocese but when we are pulling together, we can accomplish whatever needs to be done. Each person, regardless of income is called to be a faithful steward.

John Kaloudis is director of the Diocese of Salt Lake City Office of Stewardship and Development.