A Mercedes TV commercial a few years ago showed a Mercedes crashing into a concrete wall during a safety test. An engineer in a white lab coat walks over after the crash and kneels down to examine the damage, which is minimal. A reporter then asks the engineer about the Mercedes' energy-absorbing car body. After the engineer tells all about the unique design, the reporter asks him why Mercedes doesn't enforce their patent on the design -- a design evidently copied by several other companies because of its success. The engineer then replied matter-of-factly, "Because some things in life are too important not to share." (From a sermon by Steve Jackson, "Come and See") "Some things in life are too important not to share." From time to time, I will hear someone express just the opposite sentiment: "Oh no, I could never share that with anyone. It is too important to me to share with someone else."

I was wondering if there is anything in my own life I would consider "too important" to share with someone else. If someone really needed it, would I be gracious enough to give it away and trust God with the outcome? I hope so -- but if I did, I know it would not be because I was a naturally generous person. I am not. Left to my own devices, I am probably as selfish as the next person - maybe more so. But because of God's grace at work in my life, I am more willing to share with others what has been passed along to me - even things I consider very important. What gives me the freedom to share is the belief that all I have really belongs to God. I am simply a steward put in charge of it, called to take care of it, and asked to use it wisely for the work of God's kingdom. My role is to share it with others. On my better days, I do that. So, may God give us the willingness to share with others the "things in life too important not to share."

Prayer for Today

Thank you, God, for sharing the most important thing with us - the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. May that grace be at work in our lives so that we can then be your "grace dispensers" in our world. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus the Christ. Amen.