One of my favorite stewardship stories involves a missionary who was sent to teach the children of a small, rural village on the coast of Africa. Arriving just a few weeks before Christmas, he introduced himself to the class by giving each youngster a present. “The offering of gifts,” he explained, “is one of the ways that Christians celebrate Jesus’ birth.”

The following day, a young girl approached her teacher carrying a beautiful seashell. The missionary was touched and asked where she had discovered such an extraordinary shell. The girl proudly declared that she and her classmates had hiked many miles to a certain bay—the only spot in which such shells could be found.

“Thank you so much,” the missionary said. “I think it was wonderful of you to have traveled that far just to bring me this lovely present.” With a bright smile, the child replied, “The long walk is part of the gift!”

This story captures for me what stewardship is truly all about, because our gifts to God are not measured by their size, but by their sacrifice. In other words, the question we should be asking during stewardship season is not—“What can I afford to give to the church this year?”

After all, if we already know that we can easily afford it, then what have we actually sacrificed? Sacrificial giving begins when we know that we can’t afford it unless we give up something else. To put it bluntly, sacrificial giving ought to cost us something. However, as the story suggests, such sacrifices are part of the gift! And more importantly, they are the part of the gift that seems to matter most to God.