thoughts on stewardship

I have had many thoughts about stewardship rolling around in my head as of late (and by that I mean for about 6 months). When I start pondering about something, it seems to take a long time for me to think it out. I guess what started me on this topic was my church and pastor. My pastor gave a series of sermons on what our church stands for and the vision that our church has. Much of this is because the aim of the pastor and the elders is that we would have a church focused on quality rather than quantity. They want our church to be healthy from the roots, and not just outgrowing those roots.

All of that to say that one of the things that kept coming up in these sermons was a need for good stewardship. All that we have we posses because God has given it to us. Our houses, our cars, our finances, our gifts, our abilities, our talents. . .everything that we have has been given to us by God.

I think this has become especially apparent to me since I began living on my own after I graduated. I am very aware that God is the one who provides for me, and that I am to be a good steward of what He gives me. For me this means watching what I spend my money on, tithing regularly, saving regularly, looking to see what needs I can meet for others using my resources, watching how I spend my time, being a good steward of my body by eating well and exercising regularly and getting plenty of rest. Good stewardship is one of the reasons that I decided to go to massage therapy school because I want to be a good steward of this gift that He has given me. I am always asking God to help me and teach me to be a good steward of what He has given me.

Today, I was reading in Exodus about when the Israelites were constructing the Tent of Meeting or the Tabernacle. Basically, Moses asks the people to give to the making of the Tabernacle as a freewill offering as each person felt moved to give. They just keep giving and giving and every morning there were new freewill offerings being made. Finally, those who are constructing the Tabernacle come to Moses and tell him to tell the people to stop bringing offerings because they have enough.

"for the material they had was sufficient to do all the work and more." - Exodus 36:7

I started thinking about this, and I realized that this is a great lesson in stewardship. Stewardship is not only about using the resources that you have as God intends for you to use them, but it is also about knowing how much is sufficient. These people who were constructing the tabernacle could have easily been greedy and not said anything and just taken a cut for themselves, but they had a proper perspective. These were gifts given to God Himself, and they knew that what they had was enough. To be a good steward means knowing how much is sufficient and to be content with that; to know you have enough to do the work the Lord has commanded you to do and to not require more than that.

God has given us a sufficient amount to finances, talents, time, etc, to do all that He has asked us to do. It is our responsibility to make sure that we use it well. This was incredibly convicting to me this morning as I have been concerned about my finances lately. I know that I have enough. I have enough to pay my bills and to put food on the table and to put fuel in my car. I have enough time to accomplish all that is asked of me. I have enough.