Stewardship

The Miles Ahead

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I am sitting at Les Schwab replacing tires that have not yet failed.

There are still many miles left in them. The question is whether they are the right miles for what lies ahead.

Soon I will begin a twelve-week grape-hauling season. Long days, heavy loads and changing road conditions will ask more of these tires than an ordinary trip across town. So I am replacing them early—not because they cannot carry me through today, but because I am responsible for where they must carry me tomorrow.

If I judged the tires only by today’s demands, replacing them might seem unnecessary. They brought me to the shop. They could probably take me home again. Nothing about them demands immediate attention.

The coming season does.

We tend to think of maintenance as repairing something that has broken. A warning light appears, a belt begins to squeal or a tire goes flat, and we respond. By then, however, maintenance has given way to an emergency.

Proper maintenance usually happens earlier and receives very little attention. No one sees the breakdown that never occurred. No one knows about the dangerous moment that was avoided or the delivery that arrived on time because someone acted before action became urgent.

Neglect is equally quiet.

It rarely announces itself with a catastrophe. More often, it whispers, “You can get a little more out of this.”

And sometimes we can.

One more trip. One more week. One more season.

Each time nothing goes wrong, postponement begins to feel like wisdom. We congratulate ourselves for extracting a little more value from something, never considering that we may be spending the margin we will need later.

Tires that perform adequately on a warm afternoon may tell a different story on a wet highway under a heavy load. The weakness was already present. The difficult conditions merely revealed it.

Life works that way too.

We often measure our condition by whether we are still functioning. We are getting the work done, meeting our obligations and making it home at the end of the day. Because nothing has failed, we assume everything is ready.

But being functional today is not the same as being prepared for tomorrow.

We should not wait until parts of our lives are completely worn out before caring for them. Our strength, our health, our relationships and our spiritual lives all require attention before something breaks.

Not everything needs to be replaced, of course. Some things need rest. Some need adjustment. Some need repair. Others simply need us to notice that the demands ahead will be greater than those behind us.

Maintenance is the discipline of paying attention before something has to cry out.

It is also an act of stewardship.

Stewardship is not squeezing the final mile out of everything we have been given. It is caring for what has been entrusted to us so that it remains dependable when it matters most. The consequences of neglect, however, rarely belong to us alone.

The grapes these tires will help me retrieve belong to us, and our winery depends upon their safe arrival. We have too much invested in the harvest to be careless about how it gets home.

But the road home does not belong to me. I will share it with people who know nothing about my grapes, our winery or the twelve-week season ahead. They should not have to bear the consequences of maintenance I chose to postpone.

Preparing well is one way I can honor both—the harvest I am bringing home and the people traveling beside me.

Soon the work at the tire shop will be finished, and I will drive away on new tires. Nothing dramatic will happen. There will be no evidence that replacing them early prevented anything at all.

That is all right. The best results of proper maintenance are often the things that never happen.

Today I am preparing for miles I have not yet traveled and responsibilities that have not yet arrived. Some things deserve our attention not because they have failed, but because they matter too much to wait until they do.

Until next time,

George

If this reflection brought someone to mind, perhaps share it with them.

God’s Expectation: Be A Good Steward!

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Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a Gatorade bottle being placed on the ground through the cracked driver’s door of a running Honda Passport.  I witnessed the sequence of a pulled back hand, a closed-door and the appearance of backup lights indicating the exit of an individual apparently ignorant of what it means to be a proper steward of the earth.

The next moment found my index finger tapping on the driver’s side glass and my eyes meeting the sheepish stare of a caught litterbug.  The driver opened her door slightly and I opened my mouth.

“Are you really going to litter like that?”, I asked.

“It was his bottle,” she responded, pointing to someone in the back seat.

Somewhat dissatisfied with her answer and noticing three other pupils, I asked again.

“Are you really going to litter like that?”

“No,” she said embarrassingly picking up the bottle.

This entire conversation occurred in the parking lot of Redamak’s in New Buffalo, on the shores of Lake Michigan.  I flew to the area to attend meetings at Willow Community Church 25 miles northwest of Chicago.  I had just finished having dinner with friends who live in the area when I exited the restaurant and headed to the back of the building where the main parking lot is situated.  Those who know me know that I’m no environmentalist in the political sense of that word.  However, I do believe God expects us to exercise proper stewardship of the world.

God is the Creator who loves and cares for nature, but not over His love and care for humanity.  Man, above all created things, has been given stewardship responsibilities over the earth.  After the debacle in the garden, enmity developed between man and nature.  As a result, Adam was forced to exploit his physical environment to survive.  This is one of the many effects of sin.

The Christ-follower’s view of the environment needs to be garnered as God intended it.  Understand that the natural flora in which God placed Adam required no exploitation for him to survive; everything for sustenance was provided.  Genesis 1:28 teaches us, “Be fruitful and multiply! Fill the earth and subdue it! Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that moves on the ground.”  The words, ‘subdue’ and ‘rule’ were given to Adam before he sinned and contextually cannot give us permission to abuse and distort nature.  On the contrary, the context promotes stewardship.

Biblical stewardship is probably best illustrated with the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30).  The scriptural definition of stewardship is caring for someone else’s property with the goal of improving that property.  So subduing and ruling, with regard to the environment, mean caring for God’s property as God’s chosen steward, thereby making it better.  We are to intelligently manage the resources God has given us, using all diligent care to preserve and protect them.

The Bible also teaches that God did not create nature primarily for man’s use.  The earth and everything in it are God’s and for His good pleasure (Psalm 24:1).  Throughout scripture, God demonstrates that He personally cares for nature and finds absolute joy in His creation (Psalm 104:10-14).

As followers of Christ, we should be known as good and proper stewards of God’s creation.  Begin today subduing the earth as God intended – as a diligent steward.  Rule over all created things, as a conscientious steward.  This was God’s expectation for Adam and subsequently, it is God’s expectation for us.

Praying for you.