Day 209 - Ownership

📖Daily Reading

 Mark 12

🎥 Video  

Join me on my morning walk as we rise and shine together by walking through the Bible daily and learn a practical applicable coaching nugget from the ultimate life coach - our creator (whatever that means to you). No judgement zone here, all are welcome, we are all on a spiritual journey because we are after all spiritual beings having a human experience.

 

📝 Reflection 

Mark 12: 6-10

  He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, “They will respect my son.’ But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ And they took him and killed him and there’s him out of the vineyard. What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. Have you not read this Scripture: “The Stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone;…”

 

Jesus continues talking to the teacher of the law as they are questioning his authority. He uses an analogy of a vineyard owner who leaves his property in the hands of tenant farmers to care for and to collect rent or a profit of their harvest as payment. Each time a servant is sent to collect the ‘rent’ the tenants beat him and send him away empty handed. After many servants getting abused the vineyard owner gets to the end of his rope and sends his own son, thinking that ‘surely they will respect my son’. But not only does this not work, but the tenants want to kill the son. They plot and say if we kill the son maybe we will get to inherit the vineyard.  Then Jesus asks the teachers of the law what the owner of the vineyard should do? He responds for them and says the owner will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. 

The teachers knew Jesus was comparing them to the tenants in this story, but they left because they knew Jesus was growing in popularity and they were afraid. This is a warning and a reminder to all of us. This gift of life is just that a gift, we don’t own it! We were given free will to do with it what we will but. The owner will want an accounting for it one day! He is not a slave owner, he is fair and trusting vineyard owner. Are you taking care of his property and giving him his due in gratitude?  He loved us enough to give us provision, intelligence, bodies, nature, capabilities and more than enough opportunity to cultivate and have our needs met. 

It is really an interesting situation that we find ourselves in. We have individual bodies, we have free will, and autonomy - but yet we have a need for connection and inter-dependence. Our survival self wants to dominate, defend, own, conquer etc. But the way we actually get our core need of belonging met is to be vulnerable, to risk love, to have gratitude, be humble- this is a greater reward than being ‘lord’ of the manor. You often hear it too, from people who get ‘all the things’ and then are still unsatisfied, depressed, angry, lonely, protective, untrusting etc.. It is also something we hear over and over again from the dying on the deathbed, “I wish I had loved more, I wish I had enjoyed my loved ones more, I wish I didn’t work so much, care so much about ‘things’…

And yet, we hear and see this over and over again and we go right over the same cliffs. We really don’t get to take anything with us. Make sure you focus on what matters and that you understand your position as a tenant farmer. When we know and understand we are living on borrowed time and that this life is not really all about us and getting what we want - then our belongings, our titles, our roles, our homes, our cars cease to own us. We can let ourselves relax a bit and get out of the rat race and into appreciating the gift of life and the opportunity we have to experience God’s love. When you realize this it can be overwhelming, so overwhelming that it brings you to your knees in gratitude. Who knows you might even want to go spread some of that love around to others! Before you know it you might feel more abundant and full, even with an empty bank account. 

I also realize it is easier for me to type this as I sit in my suburban home, with plenty of money in the bank, and cars in the driveway. I don’t want to mislead or minimize anyones struggles or real life problems. While I do have the creature comforts, I am that person that wanted to achieve and have for safety, security, belonging and status. But I still ended up in internal pain, emptiness, loneliness and over drinking and over eating.

Material things and status don’t solve anything, in fact sometimes they cause their own problems and they end up owning you. It was only when I began to let go and truly look at my life as not my own and as a precious gift that I was squandering and mistreating that I decided to shift my heart and my thinking and earnestly try to live from a place of gratitude and service and to give my life back a thank you gift back to God by humbling myself and asking for help. I have a long way to go, but I am so much more at peace now than I have been in a long time, I have started to hold my possessions very loosely now and I have stopped wanting things as much, because I realize that I already have all I will ever need.

I am learning to look up and within instead of immediately looking outside of myself for a solution or to meet a need, except for food - I definitely go outside of myself for that 😂. Needed to end on a light note😘, God has a sense of humor too!

✍🏼Daily Journal Prompt 

How about you, how are you stewarding your gift of life? Are you grateful, grumbling, fearful? Are you seeking security outside in ownership of things?  What would it be like if you decide to be ok and to be grateful for all of life? Receive the gift vs trying to get more or living from a place of lack? Do you own things, relationships, roles or do they own you?

📖Tomorrows Reading

 Mark 13

Coaching Opportunity

Let's make 2023 the year of YOU by laying a solid foundational mind set! The world needs what only you have to offer! Give yourself the best gift ever, the best version of you is ready to rise & shine!

Book your free📞Wake Up Call today to learn if this is what you have been waiting for!  

If you have stuck with me this far, then you are not reading this by accident, I believe God has a plan for you and is calling you forward!😉🤩

 

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