Stewardship of the Stuff of Life

NB. This article (images and text) is © Copyright Melissa Yong - All rights reserved - Ways of the Mustard Seed. You may cite or reference this article or publish translated versions of this article on non-English language blogs provided you acknowledge Ways of the Mustard Seed as the original source.

There are three main areas of purpose in our lives, and each purpose contains a set of responsibilities.

Areas of Purpose

General: God's purpose for everyone regardless of personality, skill set, circumstance or season. 

This includes but is not limited to:

• Knowing God personally and intimately (Psa 27:8; Jer 9:24; Jer 31:34)
• Salvation for all (Matt 28:19; John 3:16; 2 Pet 3:9)
• Living a holy life that testifies of His power and reality (Mark 16: 17-18; 1 Pet 1:13-16; 2:11-12) 
• Loving one another as Christ loved us (John 15:12-14; 1 John 4)
• Walking in the Spirit to combat the ways of the flesh (Rom 8:1-11; Gal 5:16-17)

Personal: the God-ordained purpose for the combination of personality, skills and passions you have

This may seem obvious but for some reason we don't think of our God-given abilities and passions as being an area of purpose and responsibility. 

Do you love to bake? Bake to give away to the needy, to encourage, to open doors to meaningful relationships and discussions. Do you love to write? Write about your passion and mobilise, inform, teach, reveal to honour God. Is your skill building rapport and creating networks of relationships? Find the disenfranchised, the lonely, the rejected and create around them a loving circle of friends that can become the family they need. What are you best at doing? People all around you need what you do best. 

God has given you that particular set of gifts, that particular personality for a reason. Use it to reach out with God's love to the people He died to save and life will take on a shine that lasts through storm and fire.

Seasonal: every season of our lives has a purpose that feeds into future seasons

Student? Your purpose here is to learn and be trained with skills and knowledge that you'll need one day. Working and single? There are relationships to hone, experiences to gather, knowledge to glean from others, stuff to achieve while you have some maturity and an abundance of time, health and energy (comparatively) that is unmatched compared to most of the rest of your life. 

Married with kids? You have future Great Ones under your tutelage; work with your spouse as a tight team to hone their character, equip them with skills and understanding, be role models of the kind of people you want them to be. It won't be that long till they don't need you. Married without kids? Your marriage has an incredible purpose; God put you together because you need one another, and because you are more effective together in the work that God has called you to. You are not defined by what you do or do not have. Run diligently in the track God marked out for you and you will find beautiful, powerful things that He has prepared that are better than what you ever dreamed.

Retired? Now's not the time to make it all about you or think that you've become useless. This could be the most fruitful time of your life as you focus on a marriage of your accumulated connections, passion, experience and skill to do what you love best; use this time to impart history, experience, knowledge, skills to the next generation. They need you more than they know; and you need them more than you think.

God is a skilful Writer. There is nothing in anyone's life story that is worthless.

Prioritising It All

Usually, people have responsibilities that are a mixture of the above major areas of purpose.
But things can be streamlined if you have a tool to prioritise the responsibilities.

General + Seasonal= Duty

If your tasks fall within an area where it touches on the General Purposes of God for you and is typical of the season you are in but is missing your passion, these are tasks of Duty. They are good things to do; you just don't really love doing it.
Examples: arranging your day around school drop-off, pick up times; washing the bed linen too many times a day because of a sick loved one you are caring for.

How do we deal with these? These are tasks that you want to get out of the way quickly so that you can focus on what truly matters most. Find ways to deal with them quickly and efficiently, and/or find ways to inject your passion, your special touch into it so that it is less burdensome.

General + Personal = Surrender

These tasks embody both God's heart and your passion. They will be tasks in your life that you wish you could do/ step into but just don't have the time, money or inspiration even though it's what you'd gladly spend all day doing. Or it may be a dream that you hold dear but seems far away.

Examples: waiting to find Mr/Mrs Right; that book you've had half written for years; that music you've written and/or recorded but don't know what to do next with; those pictures, paintings you've made that friends and family have oohed and ahed over but don't seem to have an avenue to go; that awesome business you've dreamed about building; that trip you are waiting to go on but never seems to be the right time for.

Often, there is not much you can do about tasks in this area. For these, it is their time of incubation. Bathe these dreams and hopes in persistent prayer and thanksgiving, waiting before God for the green light, the open door, the command to 'go!'. When He speaks, obey. If He hasn't, continue to wait and surrender it daily. God is preparing the paths and doors for you in ways you cannot see.

Seasonal + Person = Chaff (Rubbish)

These tasks may be specific to your season, and you may enjoy it but if it does not have God's heart and purpose for the world in it, it's not worth your time. They are distractions that will eat up your time, effort, energy from the things that you should be focusing on and will lead to frustration. Discard them or refocus it so that God's purpose

Examples: You love to sing so you've been learning to sing all sorts of songs, and performing at some friends' functions. It makes you feel great but it's really all about you. OR you love playing computer games; it's great to connect with friends online and you love the games but after the late hours, you make yourself frustrated because you can't keep deadlines and aren't sleeping as much as you would like. OR you are lonely after dinner and watch hours of entertainment or catching up on the latest season of a show. You don't get much else done but at least you don't feel as lonely.

An example of re-focusing might be re-evaluating why you love to sing. Is the feel-good aspect the distraction or is it the wrong season? If you are able to surrender your own need for applause and develop the self-discipline to allow wise counsel to guide you, use it only to honour God and bless others, then you have refocused this area. If you cannot genuinely honour God or serve others in a way that points them to Him through this area, then it must be discarded.

Sometimes, such areas as ones that once it's clear where God fits in it, needs to be put into the surrender bucket.

General + Seasonal + Personal = NOW

These are the tasks where the season, God's heart and your passions all align. These are what matters most right now. Make time and effort to focus on these and make the output as fruitful as possible through obedience to the Spirit of God (our own efforts and plans are piddling in comparison - work with Him to turn on the 'turbo').

The Next Steps

Do a brain dump of all your current responsibilities and tasks. Evaluate them for whether they have aspects of general, season and/or personal purpose then categorise them into Duty, Surrender, Chaff or NOW tasks.

For all the Chaff tasks, decide which ones to bin/remove from your calendar, and which need refocusing and surrendering to God.
For those in Surrender, bow your heart to God. Don't negotiate. Just lay them aside and make time to pray about it regularly. God will make the way for you, not you.

When you get to the Duty box, choose one task to find faster ways to do at a time and experiment until you are able to whiz through them so that they don't clutter up your day. If they are not something you can do faster, pray and ask God how to add a fresh view of His heart and your passion and personal purpose to it for a new perspective.

For those in the Now box, make these your priority and do them efficiently, do them well.

May God's hand be with you powerfully as you prayerfully consider your stewardship and seek to complete it all with Him, His way. There are great things yet to come!

To hear the audio sermon for this topic, check out our MixCloud play list and search for 'CovenantYouth'.