Being Stewards: Making Our Own Decisions

Lately, I've been mulling over the definition of a steward.

Stewardship:  

1. the position and duties of a steward, a person who acts as the surrogate of another or others, especially by managing property, financial affairs, an estate, etc.  

2. the responsible overseeing and protection of something considered worth caring for and preserving (dictionary.reference.com)

The Bible tells us that we are God's stewards.  We steward everything He gives us: clothes, money, food, property, natural resources, animals, plants, children...everything.

I've heard two perspectives on this matter:

1.  Some people believe that we need to seek God and wait for Him to tell us how He would have us steward the possessions He has given us.  

2.  There are other people who believe that we should just choose what we want because it's our stuff and, if there is a God, He doesn't care about our material goods.

I think both views are missing the point.  We shouldn't have to ask God how to steward what He has given us because He's already told us in the Bible.  God wants us to make good decisions with the things that He places into our care.  He wants our decisions to bring about fruitfulness and abundant provisions for us and our families.  Read the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25:14-30.  The master does not tell the servants what to do with his money.  They decide themselves what to do.  The first 2 men go and trade the money and make double what they are given.  The third man gets scared and hides the money he is given in the ground.  His master calls him wicked and slothful for doing so.

Let me be clear about something:  He entrusts US with the decision making because He *wants* us to choose.  I believe it is very legalistic to tie ourselves to the belief that we HAVE to wait to hear from God on every single decision that comes up in life.  While I think that seeking God's will is important, we cannot hide behind this belief like some kind of life-preserver.  God does not want us to put our lives on hold during a decision making session simply because we have not heard from Him.  He has given us the FREEDOM to decide what to do and how to do things in our lives, and sometimes He's waiting for US to ACT because He plans to reward us for our faith to act (even without exact instructions).  

Another thing we should remember is that He has given us the grace to find freedom in being able to escape the legalistic views.  He is not a legalistic God.  He is an abundantly gracious and merciful God.  He wants us to be free to make our own decisions.  No matter what we choose, He will use our choices for our good.  We need only to believe that if we act as good stewards and recognize that we need to make a certain decision, it would be right and wise to make that decision, even if we don't hear from God about it.  We don't need to hear from God in order to make a decision.  There are going to be decisions in our lives that we will have to make, no matter how much or how little we pray.  Sitting around "waiting" for God when we should be acting is not pleasing to God.  He is not going to come down out of Heaven and tell us everything He wants us to do.  He entrusted us, as stewards, with the ability to think and act on our own accord for the benefit of us and our families.  To neglect that responsibility is shameful and may even be considered sinful, as James says in 4:17:  "So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin."  If you know that a decision is the right thing to do, do not remain captive to the belief that you must hear from God about it.  Do what is right in the eyes of the Lord: make the decision yourself. 

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

I get mysterious bruises all the time.  I’m a clumsy person.  I run into walls, chairs, tables, counters…if it’s in my path, you name it, I hit it.  Sometimes I’m walking too fast to care.  Or I turn around and BAM it’s right there.  Hiking can be treacherous.  I trip on tree roots, rocks, logs.  I have horrible balance, too.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked,

“Where did that come from?” 

“How did I get that?”

Have you ever gotten a bruise or cut you didn’t know you had because you didn’t feel it when you got it?  Maybe you felt it but you chose to ignore it.  Then later you realized it was there because something else made you look down and notice it.

That’s what I’m going through right now, on an emotional/spiritual level.

I don’t expect you to understand.  I just know I’m here, confused, hurt, and distrustful. 

Why?  Because I’ve realized something: I am not ashamed. 

This time, the mysterious cuts and bruises were not caused by anything I did.  They were caused by so-called spiritual leaders who thought they were doing the right thing but in fact were just covering up the truth with lies and deception to protect their “holy” appearance before their congregation. 

I was smeared with dirt and spit on.

I was refused help and forced out.

I was betrayed and isolated, left for dead.

I was shown no mercy, no love. 

That’s right, Cedar Brook.  I mean you.

Now with the whole lawsuit surrounding SGM/Covenant Life, along with some other concerning things I’ve received as counsel from different sources connected to it, I’m feeling new bruises and seeing old ones come to light.

Both churches have 3 things in common: 

1.      Lies
2.      Deception
3.      Cover ups

As a result, everything I’ve learned is being questioned.  Everything I believe is being scrutinized.  I don’t know what to believe any more, and I don’t know who to trust.  The spiritual leaders I’ve followed so far have done nothing but let me down.  Walls are going up in my heart as I strive to save what little I have left of my faith. 

Let me just put something straight.  I am not losing my faith.  I am not renouncing my faith.  I am questioning what I have learned, DECONSTRUCTING the wrong beliefs I have, and planning on REBUILDING my beliefs when I have regained my trust.

Because that’s the root here.  My trust is broken, severed by the people I thought were supposed to be trustworthy and helpful.  My scars are so deep and my trust is so broken that the walls around my heart are getting bigger and stronger every day.  They want to keep everything that could harm me out.

And maybe that’s what I need right now.  I don’t need outside influences or controversial issues trying to reach in and sway me to their side.  I need peace, I need solitude, and I need God.  I need to be alone with my wounds so I can clean them out, bandage them, and let them heal.     

Letting this pain come to the surface and rear its ugly head has shown me that repression is not healthy.  Denial is not healthy.  Ignoring it is not healthy.  The only way I’m going to heal is by acknowledging what has broken my trust and facing it with the intention of moving past it and healing. 

However, I’m not quite sure how to do that. 
How do I face my pain? 
How do I deconstruct my faith?
How do I rebuild my faith?
How do I trust again?
How do I heal?

It feels so hard to reach, and so far to go until I get there.  Sometimes, it barely feels possible.  But my past still haunts me, and living like this day in and day out is not helping.  The pain isn’t going away and, even if it takes the rest of my life, I am going to focus on pushing forward and healing.

Now, if I could just get out of this cage.             

Writing to Heal - Mentally

“I lie inside myself for hours and watch my purple sky fly over me.”  Imaginary, Evanescence

This line describes me to a T.  

What’s something you’re good at?

As an introvert, I’m good at self-reflection, or introspection.  I spend a lot of time thinking: thinking about things I’ve said, or should’ve said; things others have said, or shouldn’t have said; things that happened, or shouldn’t have happened.  I think about motives, words unspoken, and cryptic messages.  When I was younger, there were plenty of opportunities to do so, and I jumped on them.  My weak, untrained, naïve mind couldn’t grasp the consequences, however, and I caused myself a lot of grief by dwelling too much on the negatives.  I internalized so much and took things personally when I shouldn’t have.  As a result, I beat myself up for no good reason.  

1. Lack of self-esteem and self-worth caused me to feel judged by others and withdraw inside myself.

I’m not sure when this started but sometime after I turned 10 my self-esteem started to plummet.  Perhaps it was due to the various friendships I had that were going in different directions when I entered middle school and junior high.  Friends I had grown up with were pursuing other friends and leaving me behind, even though I thought we’d be friends forever.  I can see now that that only happens in rare instances and fairy tales.  At any rate, I began to feel like I wasn’t good enough for them and, subsequently, judged as some sort of weirdo because I didn’t like the same things they did.  I pulled away from them, uninterested in spending time with people who didn’t know me anymore or didn’t want to keep spending time with me.  Then there were my new friends, who soon became at odds with my old friends.  I felt torn between my two groups but couldn’t choose one group over the other.  I only disclosed certain things to certain friends, and even then there were times I would lie because I feared their rejection or judgments if they really knew the truth.  As I feared rejection more and more, I slowly isolated myself and set up defensive barriers that kept others from getting too close to my thoughts.  But I ended up defending the wrong thoughts.

2. Spiritual attacks weakened my mind

The good thing is that I know my brain is working.  The bad thing is that it usually works too much and in the wrong direction.  See, I’m not very good at arguing or debating, so when I am confronted with a fact that is logical but inherently wrong, I struggle to fight against it.  For example, when I was faced with one of Satan’s lies (“You’re worthless”), my mind considered the “facts” (I was a financial burden, I’d never be good enough, the pain and frustration wasn’t worth it, etc) and dwelt on them until they were planted so deeply in my heart that they took root and choked out any gospel truth that might’ve been there.  With no biblical foundation, I fell.  I fell far, probably to about as rock bottom as I could go, before the light of the truth reached me.  But I was so good at not fighting back, at not seeking out hope, that eventually my mind trained itself to fall into the rut of accepting the false facts as truth and live in the secrecy of the darkness.  And no one suspected anything because I didn’t trust anyone enough to admit it.  My unobtrusiveness and reclusiveness held me back in my dark corner of the world.  

And I liked it.  I lived for me, my desires, my solitude, my privacy.  No one needed to see me for who I truly was.  And why would they want to?  I was bitter, angry, and self-loathing.  Who wants to spend time with someone like that?

3. Repressed guilt ate away at me

Like I said before, I felt like a financial burden on my family.  I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes when I was 8, and besides the fact that all the health care changes were most unwelcome, the cost of my health care skyrocketed.  My medical supplies were numerous and expensive, and my family was struggling to make ends meet.  Dad’s work was unpredictable and we lived paycheck to paycheck.  I hated feeling like I was adding an extra expense to their already overwhelming list of expenses.  Those guilty feelings soon turned to anger, despair, and suicidal thoughts.  After all, if ending my pain and misery ended their financial burden, and if I would never be good enough at taking care of myself, why shouldn’t I?

4. I defended angry, hateful, depressive, and suicidal thoughts

The wall of secrecy I built in my mind harbored the very thoughts I should have been fighting against.  

• Anger toward God for giving me diabetes
• Hate for the disease that fueled my depression and pulled me into thoughts of suicide.  

I hated life and hated to think about living in the chains of diabetes for the rest of my life.  How could a loving God sentence me to such a miserable existence?  I couldn’t fathom His plan because my mind was focused on the pity party it was throwing, and hey, it was a party of which I was the focus!  Sometimes it felt like I was the only one who cared about how I felt, and I can see now that that’s because I didn’t let, want, or trust anyone else to know what was going on...not even God.  You can probably see how my self-deception led me to believe no one else cared, and so then why should I keep living?  A burden no one cares for is worthless, and they’d be better off without me.

My mind deteriorated.  I fought with myself on a daily, moment-by-moment basis.  Live or die?  

I was a coward (thanks to God) who couldn’t imagine the pain I’d inflict on my family, who, although they didn’t know me, instilled a sense of loyalty and devotion in me.  It was too much to ignore.  I held on through high school, and God met me shortly after.

I’m grateful beyond words that God met me.  He reached down, personally (through a dream), to tell me that He did care and that if I wanted to follow Him (like He could see me pretending to do) I had to turn my life around – or rather, trust Him to do it.  I wasn’t alone.  He’d been with me all along, and I believe He let me reach my lowest point so I could see clearly how much I needed Him to save me.

My defenses have been lowered.  They fell when I confessed my sin and need for His salvation.  I’ve been working to build up new defenses – walls that protect the truth of God’s love for me and the purpose He has for my life.  My worth is measured in the price Christ paid on the cross.  He was rejected and alone so I would never have to be.  He carried all of my burdens to the cross and left them there.  I am no burden.  I am a beloved daughter of God.  

And while I’m still fighting against Satan’s lies, I’m learning that I’m not fighting alone.  For every lie there is an absolute truth that cannot be changed, and there is a loving God who worked through my trials to bring me to salvation.  What’s more, He is still working in me and will continue to do so until His purpose for me has been fulfilled.  He’s doing the same for you, in your life, whether you can see it or not.  His fingerprints are all over every inch of creation.  

That’s the God I serve.  Don't make the same mistake I made.  Don't let your anger shut Him out.  Humble your heart.  He knows everything about you.  You can't hide anything from Him.  Let Him carry your burdens.  Let Him hold the position He truly is in Your life: Lord.  Let Him heal the hurts and the scars you still carry in your heart.  He's the only one who can, and He's waiting for you to run into His open, loving arms.  

“Lord, please help me to remember that You are my loving, personal God and Father.  Help me face and conquer the fears I am still facing, the fears that still dwell in my scarred mind.  Some scars run deep and I cannot heal them alone.  Give me strength to trust You in all things so that I can heal and continue to live my life fully for you.  In Your name I pray, Amen.”

When I Am Afraid

"When I am afraid, 

I put my trust in You.

In God, whose Word I praise,

In God I trust; I shall not be afraid.

What can flesh do to me?

You have kept count of my tossings [wanderings];

put my tears in a bottle.  

Are they not in Your book?"

Psalm 56:3-4, 8

I remember, when I was little, singing a song based on this verse.

"When I am afraid, I will trust in you, I will trust in you, I will trust in you.  When I am afraid, I will trust in you, In God whose Word I praise."  Back then, I never thought I'd have such paralyzing fears.  Maybe little ones, like spiders and the dark and getting a spanking, but not ones that would inhibit my spiritual growth.   

Through high school, and even more recently, verse 8 has come to mean more to me than I ever thought it would.  Meditating on it, I began to gleam the message between the lines.  God knows all the struggles I've been through.  He knows all the tears I've shed...ever.  Not only that, but He has collected them, stored away and recorded.  He loves me so much that not a single tear has slipped past Him.  He's been there, beside me, catching them off my cheek and dropping them into the bottle with every last one I've ever cried.  He knows how many there are, which ones were cried for which occasion, and how many more I've yet to cry.  All because of love.        

All through August, I began to realize that I was struggling with several big fears - fears that were crippling my relationship with God and others and making it difficult for me to sleep and have joy.  I didn't feel close to God.  I desired to be near Him, but I didn't know what to do.  

At the beginning of September, my care group leader sent out an email about a fear study that was being hosted by a few of the ladies in my church.  I immediately signed up for the class and - I have to say - it was the best decision I could've made.

We went through "When I Am Afraid" by Edward T. Welch, kept personal fear journals, meditated on relevant scriptures, completed the 3 Trees for our different fears and met each week to encourage and hear from one another.

The fears I recognized in myself:

Fear of Man

Fear of Financial Ruin

I'm sure I've lived with both fears for pretty much all of my life.  I've always been shy, quiet, and reserved.  I'm an introvert.  I spend a lot of time self-analyzing, thinking and dwelling on whatever I deem important, whether it's positive or negative.  I've almost always felt self-conscious, unsure of myself, timid and afraid of ridicule and rejection when faced with voicing my opinions.   

As for fear of financial ruin, my family has never been rich, never made much money.  They even had to declare bankruptcy at one point.  Being on my own now, I am keenly aware of how much money everything costs and how much money I don't have.  Although I don't buy a lot of luxuries (really, I only get the bare necessities), I still find myself cringing at the cost of living in this area.  I have become a penny pincher, to some degree.  "Every penny counts," they say.  After all, 1 cent is the difference between $0.99 and $1.00.

But God.
It's so amazing that I can see how His hand was orchestrating all of this - and even what's happening now, after the class is over.  

• That I would realize I was fearful and desired to fight my fears but didn't know how.
•  That the fear study was organized and held when I needed it.
• That my care group leader alerted me to the class.
• That I learned to identify and combat the fears I faced with Scripture.
• That I made new friends, who encouraged me to continue with my writing, and that a few of my poems from high school touched and blessed the group (years after they'd been written, no less) by speaking to the problems we all had.
• That I stepped out of my comfort zone and read my poems out loud, despite my nervousness (and there was no ridicule, only praise and encouragement).

He opened my eyes to the false prophecies I’d been telling myself, the control I’d been giving other people over my life, the unfailing promises of good and prosperity He has made to me, and the lack of trust I’d been giving Him in return.  That lack of trust stemmed from a lack of love. 

"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear."

1 John 4:18 

No wonder I didn't feel close to Him.  I was fearful, and the opposite of love is fear.  I wasn't loving Him, so I wasn't trusting Him.  After all, when you love someone, you trust them, don't you?  You trust them with your hopes and dreams, your affections and emotions, your secrets and desires.  You trust that they'll trust you in return.  

I was living like an orphan, believing it was all up to me to fight my fears.  

But God.  

My Father was right there, holding my hand, waiting for me to let Him fight them for me.

"God is our refuge and strength, 

a very present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, 

though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, 

though its waters roar and foam, 

though the mountains tremble at its swelling." 
Psalm 46:1-3