Ownership

“For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills.” (Psalm 50:10)

Almost everyone agrees with the first part of our text. We do not claim ownership over the creatures in the woods, such as the black bear, the raccoons, the coyotes, the squirrels and so forth.

The second part of the verse is where folks have trouble. The cattle on a thousand hills belong not to us, but to Almighty God. We want to claim ownership and say with some degree of pride, “That’s mine.” We put up fences and say all the cattle inside the enclosure are ours. We put brands on cattle to acknowledge to others our ownership. Not only does God own the cattle on a thousand hills, He owns the cars in a thousand garages. He owns all the buildings and business on a thousand streets in a thousand towns and cities.

He allows us to claim ownership only that we might be stewards over that which is His. We have nothing which He did not loan to us for a little while. The whole world is His and everything in it.