Quite Right

I'm typing this sentence in my best English accent, I'm afraid. And I assure you it is not without merit. See, my wife and I spent the better part of the weekend being swept away into the world of Downton Abbey; a show on PBS that depicts the lives of the aristocratic Crawley family and their servants in the post-Edwardian era. It's quite lovely. This may all seem a bit - oh shall we say - humorous for a Monday morning, but I confess that I have a point. It was something Lord Grantham said to his daughter about the estate he has been blessed and charged with upholding. He said, "My fortune is the work of others, who labored to build a great dynasty. Do I have the right to destroy their work? I am a custodian, my dear, not an owner. I must strive to be worthy of the task I have been set."

Wow, indeed. Pause it. I think to type in my normal voice may be the only way for me to sincerely applaud what he said. When it comes to this wonderful life, and the gift of grace, and the body God Himself built for us to experience it, we are precisely that. Stewards. Servants. Protectors. Tenants. Recipients of a fortune. Custodians for a time. I may not have royal blood coursing through my veins, nor am I near polished enough to work the servant's hall in Downton, but I do serve at the pleasure of our Lord and Savior. And this body - built by God and designed for me to follow Him - will get my utmost. And I will do it for His renown and not my own.

Dr. Charles Stanley says, "The body merits our respect and esteem in the same way that the most holy place of worship deserves upkeep."

Amen, Dr. Stanley. Quite right, sir. Quite right. Jimmy Peña