Honestly, stewardship is really the bedrock. It's the foundation of this podcast. It's what we're going to be talking about in almost every single episode. So I think it's important right here at the beginning to kind of dig into what that really means and what it really looks like. So we have that foundation, that, you know, that ground level to be able to then take in subsequent episodes and really understand and assimilate what we're talking about.

I feel like stewardship is a word that we hear often enough, but we rarely apply that to health. And that's something that I'm hoping to change, a little bit of a revolution in the way that we look at our health and the shift in perspective that we have about it. Of course, I want to look at it through the lens of faith and let you know right up front that this is honestly about freedom and not pressure. So being the nerdy, heady kind of person that I am, I always like to look up definitions. Even if I know the definition of a word, I like to read definitions and really kind of dig into what it means.

A simple definition of steward stewardship or steward is one who manages another's property, finances or other affairs. So a steward is someone who's been entrusted with something and it's their job to take care of it until the owner comes back for it. Right? Now, if we look at that through the lens of faith, it means basically caring for something that ultimately belongs to God.

And we know that the Bible tells us in James 1.17 that every good and perfect gift comes from God. So what are those good and perfect gifts that we've been given? Well, that would be our bodies, our minds, our emotions, ⁓ our relationship with God, our relationships with others, our finances, our job, our home, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It's basically anything that you have it was given to you by God and entrusted to you by God and he wants you to take care of those things and use them for his ultimate good, right?

So the contrast to that would be more of an ownership mindset. Like it belongs to me and I get to make the rules. And God has certainly given us the freedom to live that way. We have freedom in Christ and we can live that way, but the stewardship mindset is that this is a gift that I've been entrusted with. And to me, that feels so much more freeing, knowing that you have a Father in heaven who is fully invested in every detail of your life, who knows every cell in your body, who knows exactly what is best for you and wants to share those things with you. Doesn't that feel lighter than doing it all ourselves? So rather than having to make all these decisions on your own, hoping it works out, you have a heavenly Father who knows exactly how to work things out and wants to impart that information and that wisdom to you.

Now, of course, when we think of stewardship, our minds will normally automatically go to the parable of the talents. And if you're unfamiliar or you need a refresher, in this story that Jesus was telling, there was a master who was going away and distributed some of his wealth to three of his servants. To one servant he gave five talents, to another servant he gave two talents, and to another he gave one. And a talent is just a measure of currency. It's not like a talent like singing. It's just a measure of currency. So he gave so much money to one, know, five to one, two to one, one to the other.

And after he left, the two servants with five and two talents went and invested that money, put it in the bank, gained interest, multiplied the money. So when the master came back, they were able to say, look at what I've done with this. Here is your money. And then some. And the master said, good and faithful servant. You are a good and faithful servant. But the one who only was given one talent out of fear or who knows, honestly, right? He buried that talent in the ground so that he would have that one talent to give back to his master. And I think that we could probably debate a lot of the things that were going on in that servant's mind. But when the master came back, he said to him, you could have invested it. You could have put it in the bank. You could have increased my money. But because you didn't, I'm taking from you what you have, and I'm giving it to the one who started with five talents. And the master was not happy at all. And so that is a really good picture for us of what stewardship is. It's taking what we have, making the most of it, making it multiply in whatever way that we can. Now, stewardship does not equal perfection or discipline or control. Each one of us is given these talents and abilities and bodies and minds and emotions and gifts and resources, and we're entrusted with all of them. And it's our duty to use them wisely and productively.

So we cannot let fear hold us back from fulfilling our destiny, right? So sometimes it takes a little risk and that usually will result in reward. So when we know our starting point, what we start with, and we steward it well, then we can see that multiply, our faith multiplies.

It's alignment with purpose.

So again, this third servant was just fearful. He buried his talent and disappeared and just waited for his master to come back. But what did the master say to the other two? He said, you've been faithful with little, I will now give you much. So these two servants were tested and they did the wise and the good thing with what they were entrusted with. And therefore the master could say, I see how trustworthy you are. I'm going to give you more. You see, they multiplied and then the master multiplies.

And that's exactly how it is in the economy of God, right? So if we take the things that we've been given by God, that we've been entrusted by God with, and we use them to the best of our abilities and in the way God wants us to, He will be able to look at us and say, well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful with little. I will give you much. And that to me is just so freeing, so freeing. And I hope that it is for you too. It really is about faithfulness and not flawlessness.

So if you listened to episode two of the podcast, in that episode, I talked about trying harder and I encourage you to resist that temptation to just try harder. And I encourage you to revisit that episode if you want to hear more, you haven't listened to it yet. But trying harder is basically effort without alignment, right? So what are the fruits of trying harder? Well, in our own strength, if we're trying harder, the fruit of that is burnout, guilt, falling into all or nothing cycles. It's goals that you never reach, that you never finish chasing.

I found it really interesting in an Inc Magazine article. They found that 92 % of people never achieve their goals. That is a staggering number, 92%. But the 8 % that does achieve their goals does so because their goals are specific and they understand that consistency is what gets them where they want to go. But if you invite God into that process, your why becomes an even greater motivator and you have Him by your side to help you actually achieve your goal. You can assess and course correct as needed until you get where you want to go. ⁓ you know, in the Christian world and in this world where we invite God into everything that we're doing, we can be the ones to make sure that that 8 % of people that achieves their goals grows and grows and grows.

Stewardship looks different. It looks different than trying harder like we just talked about. Stewardship looks like curiosity instead of judgment. It looks like care instead of punishment. And it looks like consistency over intensity. So stewardship might ask a question like, what does my body need right now?

Now what that looks like in real life, in what we eat, for example, in food, it looks like nourishing instead of restricting. Learning about what foods make your body operate optimally. Doing some little experiments, figuring that out, praying about it, and eating those things that make you feel really, really good. And eating to support your energy, your strength, and your healing.

In movement or exercise, means moving your body as an act of gratitude, not penance, and as a way to keep this vessel strong for the work that God has for you to do. We have this one body that we've been given to live in. And so it seems silly not to take care of it as best as we can in order for it to operate as well as it can, as optimally as it can, for as long as it can.

I mean, if we go out and buy a brand new car, we buy a brand new sports car, let's say a Corvette or a Porsche or something else, it's, you know, we are very inclined to take care of that vehicle so well. We're going to give it the best gas. We're going to make sure that we wash it regularly so dirt isn't sitting on the paint. We're going to make sure that it gets all the maintenance that it needs. Oil changes and all the fluid changes. We're going to make sure that we're dusting the interior because we want that car to function as well as it can and look as good as it can for as long as it can. And I'm not trying to imply that when it comes to your body, the goal should be to look as good as you can, but it should be to make it function as good as it can and to be healthy as you can. And ⁓ so that would be what movement and food would look like.

Maybe if we're talking about rest, means honoring your limits and letting go of the belief that rest is laziness. I got to tell you, this is a hard one for me. This is something that I struggle with ⁓ every day, every week, because I feel like I need to be being productive all the time. So this is something that I'm currently praying through myself. It's like, Lord, help me to see rest as productive. I mean, God commanded us to rest. Like on the seventh day, you should take a Sabbath day. so I'm learning. I'm a lot better than I was, but I'm still working through that. You know, trying to just take time to rest and recuperate. I'm getting plenty of sleep too and taking time off work. I'm terrible about that one. But with a recent vacation policy change, I now have to take my vacation days. So I think that was a blessing in disguise because it is good to have time off.

And moving on to, let's say, your mindset. Stewardship looks like speaking to yourself with compassion. I think that we underestimate the amount of effect our self-talk has on ourselves and on our mindsets and on our perspectives. And I really believe that that's something we need to watch because when we talk to ourselves negatively or harshly, we're really giving the enemy a foothold to come in and reinforce those ideas that we've just said to ourselves. So just something to think about there, speaking to yourself with compassion and letting go of shame around your past choices. Look, we have all done things that we are not proud of. We've all made choices that we wish that we could go back and change. But if you hold on to shame around those and let that dictate what your identity is, then you are not in a place where you can have the most joyful life and a life that just really lives for God. You're not in that place if you're thinking of yourself as stupid or feeling guilty about things or foolish about things or embarrassed about things. Those are things you need to give up to God. Ask for Him to take those things from you. Ask Him for forgiveness for feeling that way and talking to yourself that way.

You know, we are all just human and we make these choices. I've made several that I wish I could go back and change, but you know, if I spent my time just ruminating on that and constantly thinking about those things that I did that I wish I could change, then I couldn't go any further. I couldn't make progress forward. And instead, I take those things and go, God, these are not choices that I would make again if I could go back and redo it. But I have to believe, like it says in Romans 8 28, that all things work together for good to them that love the Lord and are called according to his purpose. And so if I believe that, if I believe that God's word is true, I have to believe that all of it is true. And that means that verse is true. And that means that God wastes nothing, even in our mistakes and our foolishness, in our guilt and our shame, God wastes nothing.

And I believe it was those terrible decisions, terrible choices that I made that brought me to where I am today. And, you the place where I am now is a place that I very much enjoy. I feel like I am healthier mentally and emotionally than I ever have been in my life. And that's because I've come to a place of releasing it and giving it over to God and believing that He is going to redeem the bad choices that I made and the things that happened in my life.

So one key reminder that I want to leave you with is that stewardship is daily and gentle. It is not dramatic. Stewardship absolutely becomes lighter when God is part of it. So how do you make God part of it? Well, simple ways to invite him in include asking for wisdom instead of willpower. In James, it says, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all liberally and without reproach and it will be given to him. Again, another promise that God has given us that we can take to the bank. All of God's promises are yes and amen. So ask for wisdom and he will give it to you.

If you remember Solomon, God told Solomon, ask me for anything you want. God asked, or Solomon asked for wisdom and that pleased God. And God then multiplied everything else he had as well because he was so pleased with Solomon for making such a wise choice to ask for wisdom.

This also looks like praying before making changes and throughout every step if you're talking about food for example Like we we talked about earlier and trying to figure out what works best for your body pray about those things that God What is it? That I currently have in my in my diet in my in my things that I'm eating that is affecting me help me to figure that out and remove it and replace it with something that's going to be beneficial to my body and make me feel good.

It's also about surrendering outcomes, timelines, emotional attachment and expectations. So it really, you know, when you are stewarding the things that God has given you and you've asked him into the process, it's really this.

Again, it's so much, there's a lightness to it, right? It's this ability to just have grace for yourself and tweak as you need to in any aspect of life. Figure out what's not working, asking God to give you the wisdom to figure that out and to show you what's not working. Making those slight changes, understanding that small changes over time have huge impacts and just taking it one step, one day at a time and not feeling like you have to do all or nothing or that there's all of this pressure on you. Let it be a long-term goal. Play the long game. Don't just look for immediate satisfaction because in just about every area of life where you are now didn't happen overnight. If you have areas that you want to fix, if you want to lose weight, if you want to clean up your diet, if you want to move more, whatever it is, where you are now, you didn't get there overnight. It's taken weeks or months or years to get where you are. So to think that we can change that overnight is kind of silly.

But invite God in, give yourself grace, and then take those baby steps knowing that you're playing the long game. And I really want to, again, emphasize the partnership. God provides direction and grace. And if you've been a Christian for any length of time, this is something you probably know very well.

When you're seeking God's will, I kind of look at it like a child at the bowling alley when they put in the bumpers into the gutters. So that child rolls the bowling ball. And to me, that's like God's will for our life is the bowling alley. And that child will roll that ball and it may hit the sides and bounce around and bounce off the sides. But God has put those boundaries in there for us that if we are truly seeking his will, He won't let us miss it. That ball is going to get to the end because there are boundaries in place for that ball to stay on the right track, even if it goes a little wonky and it zigzags and all of that. It might not go in a straight line, but it's gonna get there because we're truly seeking God's will. And yeah, again, just take small and faithful steps.

When we try to do things like this, make any kind of change on our own, it feels like striving. feels like constantly working ourselves to exhaustion, hoping that we get the results that we're after. And sometimes maybe we do, but those results are usually short-lived and very hard to maintain without continuing the exhaustive work constantly. It feels honestly like a form of bondage, like never getting it right or never being good enough. But when we look at this from a lens of stewardship and inviting God in, there's a freedom and a lightness. Remember, Jesus said, my burden is easy and my yoke is light. And in this way of doing things, we're pleasing God and being entrusted with more because he sees that you're a good and faithful servant. We're using our time wisely. We're making the most of it. And it really all comes down to the posture of your heart.

God wants us to approach all of life with humility and a willingness to learn and to surrender to Him, ⁓ believing in faith that He and only He knows what's best for us and wants to share that with us. He wants us to enter into the joy of our salvation. So if this is you right now, if you feel like you're in a place where you're maybe not stewarding a specific area of your life well, maybe you feel like you're not stewarding any area of your life well.

I want you to know I've been there. I want you to know that there is nothing that cannot be changed. There is nothing that God cannot change and that stewardship is not about fixing yourself. It's about honoring the life and the gifts you've been given and honoring God in the process. You don't need to do everything. You just need to do the next right thing. So as we close, I want to leave you with a question as I do.

What would it look like to care for your body or your mind or your emotions or your fill in the blank as something precious this week? What would it look like for you to care for that thing as something precious this week? I want you to think about how stewardship shows up in what you eat, in your movement, in your mindset, in your emotions. What does stewardship look like in your everyday life?

And that's really what I have for you today. I hope that you found this helpful. ⁓ I would love to invite you to subscribe to the podcast. You know, every time a new episode is dropping and ⁓ we are going to continue to explore these topics. I have many, many, topics that I want to explore with you and this is just one. And so I'm very much looking forward to when we can get together again. So I want you to take care.

Think on this question and I will see you in the next one. Take care, friend.