A large pile of branches sits by my backyard fence—a monument to my flawed thinking. On a recent Saturday I spent a couple of hours under the Florida sun chopping down two 8-foot-tall trees.

On a future Tuesday evening I'll haul the branches from the fence, bind them into stacks with twine, and drag the stacks around the house to the end of my driveway so a county worker can take them and add them to the community compost pile. Sadly, I could have avoided 80 percent of this work.

No, I don't mean I could have made my son, Michael, do it. I mean that when the trees started to sprout under a fence a couple of years ago, I knew I didn't want trees there. I could have clipped them with a pair of scissors. But I didn't. I ignored them.

I guess I thought they might end up withered and black like the tomato plants I'd dropped in the ground a few years ago. Or maybe I thought I'd find a reason to let them stand once they'd grown. Or maybe I was just lazy. Now the trees threatened to damage the fence, and I couldn't ignore them any longer.

Aside from the questionable benefits of the exercise involved in chopping, this was a huge waste of time. But it reminds me of something else I sometimes let grow where it shouldn't.

When I have a disagreement with someone, I lazily want to let it go. For now. Until the tension between us grows to the point that we can't ignore it. Then when the damage reaches the 8-foot height, we have to do a lot of work to resolve the problem.

I can easily solve a disagreement with a co-worker, a family member or a friend at church with the communication equivalent of a pair of scissors. But only if we solve it early. Less work, less time, less compost.

I know you're not supposed to cry over spilled milk, but what about spilled fingernail polish?

In my clumsiness I knocked over an entire bottle of blood-red polish, coating the walls and floor with splashes of red. Frantically, I grabbed a bottle of polish remover and cotton balls hoping to wipe away the terrible mess. But instead of erasing the red streaks, I created new pink blotches. The more I scrubbed, the worse the wall looked.

Then I panicked. This wasn't even my house. I was housesitting for some friends who were out of town for the summer. What would they say?

I tried to cover up the stain with a bathroom trashcan, but the red peeked out from all sides. As I gazed at the ugliness on the wall, suddenly God brought a verse to my mind:

"'Come now, and let us reason together,' says the Lord. 'Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool'" (Isaiah 1:18).

The red streaks on the wall are just like my sin. I try my hardest to remove the stain, but the best I can do is make a pink mess on a white wall.

There was no other way to remove the nail polish than to paint over it, erasing my blunder forever. Likewise, because of the Cross, my sins are completely removed. When God looks at me, He sees a clean, white wall.

I still remember finding the stash in my brother's room. He had confiscated the much-coveted Fruit-Rollups that my mom bought strictly for school lunches. I was appalled and angry that he was so selfish to hoard the entire box of the snacks for himself. I remember telling him that our mom intended that we all share those treats. I knew what he was up to, and I didn't like it one bit. A whole box—that was just plain wrong. So I told on him.

I knew his motives quite well, because not too long ago, I had swiped two or three of the fruit snacks for myself before someone else could gobble them.

Sometimes the very thing we can't stand in others resides within us. Christian author Beth Moore writes in her book, Breaking Free, that we can tell if legalism has invaded our hearts when "microscopes replace mirrors." That day when I tattled on my brother, I was exposing an injustice, and yet I had been guilty of the same crime.

Jesus described me when He said, "Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?. . . You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye" (Matthew 7:3,5).

I heard someone once describe stewardship in a very unusual way. "Life," he said, "is a ship loaded with a cargo of many things on its way to many people in many places. God is the Owner, but I am the captain of the ship. God holds me responsible for the distribution of the cargo."

Foundational to understanding stewardship is to know our role in God's economy. He has put in our hands the administration of all that He owns. He holds us accountable for how we manage what He has given us.

Contrary to popular thought, we are not here to merely enjoy the good life. We are here as children and servants of God to invest our time, talents and treasures, in order to seek and save the lost. If we are not faithful stewards, valuable resources are lost in the kingdom of God.

God knows our tendency to treat our resources as possessions to hoard rather than gifts to benefit the kingdom. Perhaps that is why the Bible records more than 700 references to giving. The New Testament has more to say about this subject than about the return of Christ. In Acts 20:35, Paul remembers Jesus' words: "It is more blessed to give than to receive."

I remember I first heard this as a growing lad, then as an agnostic, and later as a young Christian. I could not comprehend how giving could be better than receiving. Now I truly understand. It is "more blessed to give" for several reasons.

First, God created us within the context of a giving universe. When one chooses to contradict God's design, he suffers the consequences: greed, competitiveness, gross shortages, imbalances in the distribution of wealth, and insecurity.

Second, giving is more productive. When we give freely of ourselves and our possessions, God in turn meets our needs in abundance. We must be careful to understand the difference between giving to receive and receiving because we give. We cannot manipulate or bribe God. Yet multiplication is the mathematics of heaven.

In 2 Corinthians 9:10, Paul writes that God can "supply and multiply your seed for sowing." Whatever we give becomes the basis of God's multiplication.

Third, giving begins an endless circle of joy. God gives; we receive. We give; He receives. He then multiplies what we have given back to us in the form of our supply. If we are giving to glorify God, we can expect a return. The purpose of the return is that we may have the ability to give again, thus completing the circle.

The person who disobeys God in these matters cannot walk in the fullness and power of the Holy Spirit. This results in all kinds of self-imposed poverty—materially and spiritually. But a life of giving makes us channels of His blessings.

The Sea of Galilee provides a good example of this. This famous body of water is fed by the Jordan River, which exits at the southern tip of the lake. The surrounding plains are among the most fertile in the world. Because it receives and passes on its fresh, sweet water, the sea is a source of life.

By contrast, the Dead Sea, just 65 miles downstream, is a harsh, saline body of water. Its source is also the Jordan River, but unlike the Sea of Galilee, it has no outlet. As a result the water is bitter to taste and nauseous to smell. Its shores are lifeless.

Two bodies of water—one sweet and overflowing with blessing; the other bitter and lifeless. One receives and gives; the other receives and hoards.

I have observed many Christians typified by these waters. Like the Sea of Galilee, some give abundantly to the work of our Lord with enthusiasm and excitement. They are prosperous and filled with joy, "abounding in the work of the Lord" (1 Corinthians 15:58).

I have also seen those who hang onto what God has entrusted to them, trying to build larger and larger estates. These people are usually negative and unhappy. What joy they have missed because, like the Dead Sea, they have become blocked by greed and selfishness.

Every Christian is responsible to help reach his own generation for Jesus Christ. We cannot be casual or indifferent about our task. We would make every effort to rescue a drowning person; let us place the same importance upon the stewardship of our time, talents and treasure, taking the message of Christ to everyone who will listen.

Adapted from As You Sow: The Adventure of Giving by Faith, ©1989, by Bill Bright. Here's Life Publishers. Used by permission.

"Ooo, gross!" cried some of my students. I had to silently agree with their assumption. Earthworms don't rate very high with me either, but as a first-grade teacher, I needed to help my class appreciate all creatures.

As they used their magnifying glasses to help them see the various parts of the worm better, my squeamish students hunched over their worms, gleefully watching them wriggle across a paper plate. In no time, these same children were picking up the earthworms.

Since these creatures were going to be our guests for a few days, I explained that we needed to provide the worms with the things they required to live. The children recalled from previous lessons that all living things need shelter, food, water and air. So we set up a temporary habitat for our earthworms.

The following Sunday, God reminded me that if He could provide for the needs of those earthworms, then I shouldn't worry about my life, trusting Him instead. In Matthew 6:25,26 we are told, "Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?" (New International Version).

Those gross little worms actually brought Jesus' words to life for me.