Being Stewards

As God's chosen people, we have been created to do good works which God has chosen and equipped us to do. What we do with that equipment is called "stewardship." We are to be good stewards of our money, for instance, and remember that the money we have is not ours but God's. The way we use our money indicates where our hearts are.

Stewardship of ourselves

The same, however, can be said of stewardship of ourselves. Who are we? We consist of our mind, body, and spirit. Christianity and spirituality obviously address the "spirit" part. but what about the rest? Often, I feel myself neglecting one or two of these to work on the other. I spend time at church worshiping or in the library studying, but I don't go to the gym. Or I'll study and exercise but neglect serving others. Or I'll be SO busy serving others and neglect my studies.

However, when one area falls, so do the others. If you don't sleep and take care of your body, you won't have enough energy to to handle your school /work duties, and you definitely won't have enough energy to be serving the church. (I know I've been using "serving the church" as a substitute for spirituality here. I'm using it because it's an outward indicator of an inward attitude, though don't take this to mean that the indicator is necessarily right.) Or if you neglect your personal spiritual disciplines, you'll probably end up more frustrated and more grumpy and less focused on work and school. Or if you aren't on top of your school and work duties, you'll be frustrated and stressed, and these emotions can easily effect your spirituality.

Juggling is bad

I think the first thing to do is realize that all of these things are linked. And they're all YOU. YOU are your mind, your body, and your spirit. The second thing to realize is that you need God. God isn't just for the "spirituality" part of your life, but He is for every part of your life. Not only does He provide "for" every part, but He wants to be "in" every part. If you study or do your work for the glory of God, then you'll want to do your best, and He'll enable you to do so. If you take care of your body and eat well and exercise for the glory of God, then again, you will see health and growth in this area. And, of course, if you seek God with all your heart, soul, and mind, the spiritual part of you will flourish as you abide in Christ and He in you.

Final Note

I also want to recognize that some people live with impairments. Some are intellectually challenged. Others deal with physical ailments. These conditions take time to address and should be discussed separately, but I did also want to acknowledge that such limitations exist. However, regardless of where one is- intellectually, physically, spiritually, no one is ever outside of God's reach or outside of God's power. God meets us where we are and transforms us into the people we need to be. So let that be a lesson for us this week.

To live is Christ, and this encompasses ALL areas of living, as we are living sacrifices as our act of spiritual worship.

Random notes to my readers:
I finally caved in to the pressure and got a Twitter account. I already decided that I won't use it to post the mundane details of my life (after all, that's what FB is for.) Instead, I'll be using it to RT or reply to other Twitter-ers in the Christian circles I run in (mostly the young, restless, and reformed circle, in case you haven't been able to tell yet.) I'll also be posting original (or semi-original) thoughts of my own as an extension of this blog. If you're interested, you can follow me on jo_of_tsn, and the hashtag I'm using for this blog is #threestarnight.