Fifteen years ago, I was serving as pastor in Alabama and our church was in a capital stewardship campaign to raise money to build a new building. There was one particular lady in our church who was a widow. Her husband had left her a lot of money, and she had a lot more than she really needed. She loved the Lord and she loved her church, but she tended to be rather conservative. We had a banquet one night and she wrote down an amount on her card that was a very “safe” amount. It was not a risk at all. That evening I spoke on where Jesus said, “Don’t store up your treasures on earth, where moth and rust corrupt, and thieves break in and steal. But lay up your treasures in heaven.” I spoke about how a moth eats up wool when we store it, not when we wear it. I went into great detail about moths. I also spoke on how rust destroys tools when they are stored not when they are being used. My point was that when we store up God’s resources they don’t accomplish anything: we have to use them or they become like moth-eaten garments or rust encrusted tools.
Nell went home from that banquet feeling a little guilty about the amount she committed because of the large amount she was storing up. She walked up to her front door and opened her purse to get out her key and she was shocked by what happened next: somehow a huge moth had gotten into her purse and when she opened it, the moth fluttered and flew out. She said God used that moth to teach her that she didn’t need to be storing up her money; she needed to be using it for God. She returned to the fellowship hall (she lived just across the
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