Is Your Life Out of Order? Practice Stewardship

Stewardship is a word that seems almost obsolete these days.

If you ask most young adults what that means, they will likely be clueless.

That’s alarming because stewardship is foundational to a well-lived life, and the earth and its inhabitants being well cared for by this generation.

How can you pass on what you don’t know?

Stewardship was the first job given to humankind by the Creator. It comes with a blanket provision that requires good management of everything entrusted to us, and He hasn’t given us a pink slip.

All resources, human beings, living things, and even the inanimate things we have crammed into our lives, require stewardship.

Each of the 300,000 items in the average American home that we are privileged (or burdened) enough to own requires management. It has to be housed, cleaned, maintained, used, and remembered to be useful; otherwise, why have it?

It must also be disposed of at some point, which takes more time, effort, and physical and mental energy. A lot goes into owning stuff that we don't consider on the front end.

How much more thoughtful care do our relationships deserve and require?

Responsibility is the companion of privilege. Yet we often focus on the benefits without considering proper care and how we use, manage, and maintain them.

Case in point. I’m sitting in the local Panera coffee shop, and I see the evidence of this in the parking lot and on the ground around the outdoor tables set up for enjoyment. The mindless action of someone who tossed their garbage aside for someone else, usually Johnny, to come along and clean up.

And I wonder why this Panera doesn’t provide the option to recycle. How hard would it be to add a recycling bin next to the trash that consumes hundreds of paper and plastic items daily? It might encourage mindfulness and would save on unnecessary landfilling.

Even in schools, mindfulness is a hot topic, but not so much is said about mindlessness.

Mindfulness sounds like a good idea that you may try sometime, but who wants to be mindless?

I’ve become obsessed with these things and with organization.

I lived with the evidence that the way you do anything is the way you do everything, and it creates either order or chaos.

Paying attention to how you do things is key to good stewardship, which applies to your body, time, money, stuff, and cultivating anything.

I’m wrapping up a multi-year renovation transforming my home into Pleroma Sanctuary, a beautiful place for retreat and refreshment for women who want to care for their hearts, soul, and spiritual life. I.e., the most crucial relationship of all, with God.

A complete surprise to me is that the most exciting part is not the spa, sauna, sunroom, hermitage, gardens, or winding creek bed; it's the garage!

I am so excited that tomorrow the ceiling that has been water stained as long as I’ve lived here, the cinder block walls, and the concrete floor will get painted. I will gladly sacrifice my 5:45 a.m. Pure Barre Class to prep the walls instead.

For some reason, the sight of a beautifully clean, freshly painted garage with the tools and supplies neatly organized and labeled looks like evidence of good stewardship to me.

It's a night and day contrast to how my garage has looked for most of the years I’ve lived here, as my life has transformed from crises and chaos to order and peace.

From mindlessness to mindfulness, keeping what matters most first.

And from chasing what the world considers success to pursuing the fruits of the spirit.

Sweet liberty.

Stewardship does that. Bringing order, priority, and management to the smallest things makes room in your life to live purposefully. And that is the hallmark of a well-lived life.