ALONG THE WAY · A MODERN PARABLE
The Steward of the Field
On stewardship, surrender, and the burdens we were never asked to carry.
There was once a woman entrusted with a wide and fruitful field.
The field had many sections. Some were strong and producing. Others were tangled, overgrown, or quietly draining the life from everything around them. Still others held seeds that had not yet broken through the surface but carried promise beneath the soil.
She did not come into the field casually. She had labored for it, fought for it, prayed over it. At times she had watched it flourish, and at other times she had watched parts of it wither despite her effort.
One day, the Owner of the field drew near and said, “Walk it with Me.”
So she walked.
As they passed through the field, she began to feel the tension she had been carrying rise to the surface. Certain sections felt heavy. Some areas stirred frustration. Others made her tired just to look at them.
She stopped beside a portion of the field that had once been promising but had become chaotic and costly to maintain. The soil there had been turned over again and again, but no lasting fruit remained.
“Should I keep fighting for this part?” she asked.
The Owner did not answer immediately.
Instead, He knelt down and picked up a handful of soil. He let it fall slowly through His fingers.
“This part of the field,” He said gently, “has required much of you.”
She nodded.
“It has cost me peace,” she said quietly.
They walked further.
They came to a section that was producing, but only because she had been constantly tending it, correcting it, carrying weight that was never meant to be hers alone.
“I can keep this alive,” she said, almost defensively. “I know how.”
“Yes,” the Owner said. “You can keep it alive.”
There was a pause.
“But is that what I asked you to do?”
She didn’t answer.
They walked again.
They came to a part of the field that had been neglected, not because it lacked value, but because she had not had the capacity to tend to it while managing everything else. Yet the soil there was rich, and the air felt different, lighter, expectant.
She felt something stir.
“This could become something,” she said.
The Owner smiled, but did not rush her.
Finally, she turned to Him, the tension rising fully now.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “I’ve been trying to steward everything well. I’ve been carrying what needs to be carried. I’ve been holding it together. Why does it feel like I’m losing peace the more I fight to keep it all?”
The Owner looked at her with kindness, but also with clarity.
“You have been faithful,” He said. “But you have also been carrying what I did not ask you to carry.”
Her eyes filled slightly.
“I thought if I let anything go, I was failing.”
He shook His head.
“No,” He said. “You thought holding everything together was faithfulness. But I never asked you to hold the field together. I asked you to walk with Me in it.”
She exhaled slowly, something in her beginning to loosen.
“Then what do I do?” she asked.
The Owner pointed back across the field.
“Some things need to be pruned. Some things need to be released. Some things need to be rebuilt differently. And some things need your attention that you have not yet had space to give.”
He paused, then added:
“And your peace is not a prize for doing all of this perfectly. You can walk with Me even when the work is hard, and when your heart is troubled.”
She stood quietly, taking it in.
Then she asked the question she had been avoiding:
“What if letting go costs me something?”
The Owner met her gaze.
“It will,” He said.
Another pause.
“But so will holding on to what I have already asked you to release.”
The wind moved gently across the field.
For the first time, she realized something she had missed before.
The peace she had been fighting for was not hidden somewhere deeper in the field.
The Owner was standing beside her, waiting for her to stop striving long enough to walk with Him.
