I was afraid I would lose your money, so I hid it in the earth. Look, here is your money back. Matthew 25:25
Sometimes the safest choice is the one we regret most: the application we never send, the idea we never try, or the ability we never use.
Samantha dreamed of becoming an author. She wrote an entire novel. Then she did something with it that required no risk: she put it in a drawer. Samantha says she didn’t have enough faith in herself to try to get published. Her manuscript sat there for about a year before she began submitting it. Rejections came, but Samantha kept writing. She eventually published her first novel in her 40s and went on to become a bestselling author. Fear doesn’t always make us run away. Sometimes it persuades us to do nothing.
Jesus told a story about a wealthy man who entrusted his money to three servants before leaving on a trip. Two put what they’d been given to work and increased it. The third buried his. Why had he buried it? He said, “I was afraid I would lose your money, so I hid it in the earth. Look, here is your money back” (Matthew 25:25). Fear had convinced him that the safest thing he could do with what he’d been entrusted was nothing.
Jesus isn’t telling us that every risk is wise or that faithfulness always produces visible success. His story is about stewardship: what we do with what God has given us. Each servant was responsible for what he had received.
God never asks you to live someone else’s life. Look at what’s in your hands: your time, abilities, resources and opportunities. What’s your capacity to encourage, serve, create, give or begin? Fear gives us reasons to keep those things safely buried. Faithfulness asks, “What could I do with what God has already given me?”
