Stewards of our Selves: Working from a Well-Kept Starting Place Issue Two of EMCC's Stewardship 2008 Program (Download this reading here.)
In “What is Stewardship?” we noted that stewardship is our first call and vocation as human beings. We are called and expected to care for, manage and maintain God’s creation. Before we can answer this call, however, we must take care of our most valuable resource…ourselves.
No great practitioner of any vocation begins work without the right tools. Carpenters always keep their worktable, hammer, saw and nails. Pastors keep a Bible and prayer close at hand. Musicians keep their instruments close and a few choice pieces of music well-practiced. Every vocation requires tools in order to be done well and our vocation as stewards is no exception.
Stewards walk all tracks of life and serve in a variety of manners. However, a set of tools exists to help stewards work in their vocation. Our foremost tool for effective stewardship are resources we all possess – our bodies and our minds.
Our Bodies Our body represents us in all situations. From the top of our heads to the tip of our toes, our body presents us to the world. Without our bodies, we are and do nothing. As such, each part of our bodies demands our caretaking, managing and maintaining in order to function with us as stewards.
Most of us maintain a schedule which does not allow for the adequate caretaking of our bodies. Some of us suffer from illnesses which challenge our body’s ability to function at all. Still others struggle with a variety of addictions and habits to which we cling as “creature comforts” while they whittle down our body’s ability to work for God. Regardless of the myriad of reasons we currently do not care for our bodies, one thing is clear: in order to be good stewards, we must serve our bodies.
Two primary services we can give to our bodies are eating well and sleeping well.
Eating Well In a world where McDonald’s rules the fast-food roost and “convenience” stores carry 80% junk food (at least), maintaining good nutrition can be one of our most challenging tasks. Though we live in one of the most abundant countries on the planet, fresh food and produce cost more than overly-processed food.
How can we possibly overcome our lack of nutrition and feed our bodies well? Here is one suggestion…
Sleeping Well In addition to nutrition, we all share a common need for sleep. Not everyone requires the same amount of sleep, though we would benefit from around eight hours every night. Of course, medical issues and emotional illness can directly influence your sleep time and sleep experience as well.
Sleep restores our ability to think clearly and move freely. Without sleep, we become sluggish and drained. Like a child who wakes up too early from a nap, we struggle without sufficient sleep to keep our emotions in check, respond to others’ needs, or complete more than our required daily tasks.
How can we overcome our lack of sleep, given our many responsibilities and individual diffiulties? Here is one suggestion…
Our Minds Everything we do for our bodies, we do for our minds. Caring for the needs of our bodies frees us to think, feel and discern appropriately to every situation we encounter. We also receive the gift of confidence and heightened self-esteem. But what happens if we do all we can for our bodies and our minds don’t follow suit?
In our United States culture, and elsewhere in the world, the pressure to do more and be more can take its toll. We could eat perfectly, sleep perfectly and exercise daily and still find ourselves emotionally and mentally drained. Sometimes, such inconsistencies call for medial intervention. More often, however, an examination of our commitments and schedules can offer some insight.
Watch your schedule! Everyone is busy these days. From children to parents, from bankers to trash collectors, everyone is busy. Keep a close eye on your schedule. If you have activities from waking to bedtime, you are likely missing times to rest. If you are carrying more of a load than you can balance, consider dropping something or asking for help. Do anything you can to offer yourself some down-time before you step into bed and to make room for healthy habits around eating and exercising. Finally, if you are doing something which causes you undue anger or anxiety – if at all possible, stop doing it!
Conclusion Perhaps it seems strange to speak of stewardship while professing that we stop extra commitments or activities that drain us. Yet, a truth remains in all things we do while exhausted, physically or mentally. When exhausted, we do not perform at our best. If a cost of our stewarding activities is our own health, we will eventually cease our stewardship. Sheer exhaustion or frustration will drive us not only further away from our activity, but far away from our sense of vocation as stewards.
We must continually pay attention to our attitudes about activities and commitments in order to never lose the perspective of ourselves as stewards. Stewardship does not have to rely on extra commitments to be effective. In fact, we are called to a variety of stewardship activities, some “active” and some “passive,” but all important. If you are engaged in extra commitments which are all active, choose a more passive mode of stewardship. Participate in monetary giving, recycling, or praying. If you have extra time that will not hinder your healthy balance in body and mind, choose a more active mode of stewardship. Participate in clothes/food drives, feed the homeless, or volunteer for a ministry.
Our bodies and our minds provide us the first and foremost avenue to effective, vocational stewardship. Before we can care for our siblings and God’s creation, we must care for ourselves. In caring for ourselves, we equip ourselves to care for others. Of course, once we’re on the road to self-care and we begin to act within our stewardship vocation, we may just find that our stewardship contributes to our own self-care.
