Monday, October 26, 2009

The Discipline of Stewardship

When we think of spiritual disciplines, we tend to think first of Bible study and memorization, prayer, and maybe even fasting. Until I read some books over the past few years I didn't realize that there were dozens, maybe even hundreds, of things that can be considered spiritual disciplines. Really, anything that assists in the molding of our character into something more like Christ's could probably be considered a spiritual discipline.

To me, stewardship is an oft-overlooked spiritual discipline. One definition (from Merriam-Webster) of stewardship is "the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one's care." If we consider that everything given to us comes from God and belongs to God, everything we have is really just under our stewardship and not truly owned by us, whether our bodies, our time, our money, or other resources in our possession.

The act of living as a steward of these things is a discipline because through it we acknowledge God as the owner of all while we are the caretakers.

Now that I've introduced this idea, I'll proceed to a more personal post about how this has recently played out in my life.

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