Stewardship Part Two

“Everything
under heaven
is Mine.”
~Job 41:11~

The position you hold about stewardship verses ownership will have just about everything to do with how you process and respond to what’s in front of you…or who’s in front of you. Think about the people, possessions and positions that comprise your life. Do you have a sense that they belong to you or do you view them as something you practice stewardship over?

I remember the moment I found out I was pregnant with our son. I was completely awestruck. And I was equally conscious that this was God’s entrustment to me. I was responsible to care for and love this child in response to my Father. Forming in my womb, he was already completely known by God. God had plans and a purpose for him, whom He’d known before the foundations of the world. He was God’s. I have never been able to escape that truth, not for a moment. And because of it, there has never been room for possessiveness. Yes, I’m his mother. No one else holds that place in his life. But think how different it is to care for someone you love as deeply as your child, knowing you do so on behalf of their Creator. It changes everything, as it ought to.

I have entered the empty nest phase of life. It’s easily the most painful, wrenching thing I’ve experienced. Nothing has been more fulfilling, beautiful or sacred, than being my son’s mother. I grieve the end of the child rearing years. And over and over I hear the Lord’s gentle reminder, that Evan belongs to…. has always belonged to Him.

O own nothing, except my God given right to choose for myself. Even my ability to practice stewardship belongs to God, because He makes it clear I can do nothing of eternal consequence apart from Him. The principle of stewardship is at the core of my system of belief. And it applies across the board to every piece of what makes up the life I live.

I am a steward…. of precious, immeasurably valuable possessions; God’s possessions.