Hendrickson Publishers - Stewardship: Spiritual Practices for Everyday Life

Everyday life today is busier and more distracting than it has ever been before. While cell phones and texting make it easier to keep track of children and each other, they also make it harder to get away from the demands that overwhelm us. Time, it seems, is a shrinking commodity. But God, the Creator of time, has given us the keys to leading a life that may be challenging but not overwhelming. In fact, he offers us tools to do what seems impossible and come away refreshed and renewed. These tools are called spiritual practices, or spiritual disciplines.

Spiritual practices are holy habits. They are rooted in Gods word, and they go back to creation itself. God has hardwired us to thrive when we obey him, even when it seems like his instructions defy our common sense. When we engage in the holy habits that God has ordained, time takes on a new dimension. What seems impossible is actually easy; its easy because we are tapping into Gods resources.

The holy habits that we call spiritual practices are all geared to position us in a place where we can allow the Holy Spirit to work in us and through us, to grant us power and strength to do the things we cant do on our own. They take us to a place where we can become intimate with God.

While holy habits and everyday life may sound like opposites, they really arent.

As you learn to incorporate spiritual practices into your life, youll find that everyday life is easier. At the same time, you will draw closer to God and come to a place where you can luxuriate in his rich blessings. Here is a simple example. Elizabeth Collings hated running household errands. Picking up dry cleaning, doing the grocery shopping, and chauffeuring her kids felt like a never-ending litany of menial chores. One day she had a simple realization that changed her life. That day she began to use her chore time as a time of prayer and fellowship with God.

Whenever Elizabeth walked the aisle of the supermarket, she prayed for each person who would eat the item of food she selected. On her way to pick up her children, she would lay their lives out before God, asking him to be there for them even when she couldnt. Each errand became an opportunity for fellowship with God. The chore that had been so tedious became a precious part of her routine that she cherished.

The purpose of these study guides is to help you use spiritual practices to make your own life richer, fuller, and deeper. The series includes twenty-four spiritual practices that are the building blocks of Christian spiritual formation. Each practice is a holy habit that has been modeled for us in the Bible. The practices are acceptance, Bible study and meditation, celebration, community, confession, contemplation, faith, fasting, forgiveness, gratitude, hospitality, justice, mentoring, outreach, prayer, reconciliation, Sabbath and rest, service, silence, simplicity, solitude, stewardship, submission, and worship.

As you move through the practices that you select, remember Christs promise in Matthew 11:2830:

Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.

Introduction

to the Practice of Stewardship

The gentlest form of spiritual narcissism is the idea that one can accomplish ones own spiritual growth.... The belief that I can do it is intimately associated with the assumption that it is my idea, my desire, to do it. Spiritual narcissism works to deny the realization that our spirituality comes from God. Gerald May

Though we live in a land of plenty, we often look at our lives through the lens of what we lack. Global statistics bear out our affluence: even those of us making the minimum wage in America make more than 93 percent of the world (www.globalrichlist.com). Our average home size is larger, we have more leisure time, our general health is better, our lives are longer, and our educational level is higher. So why do we generally see our resources as scarce and allow worry and fear to rule so many of our daily decisions?

This mind-set is fostered by the barrage of media messages and our consumer-driven economy. But our history is also a culpritwe are a culture of people who have always tended to be dissatisfied with the status quo. More freedom, more liberty, more landits a national persona that honors striving and discontent. And we must be honest: the discontent has proven to be a successful way to build up and build out a country.

Yet the very real danger for us, as we follow the way of Jesus, is to take on a mind-set of both scarcity and self-control. Scarcity breeds thoughts such as theres only so much to go around. Wed better take what we can, save all we can, keep all we can. Self-control takes our dissatisfaction and tells us: If anything is going to change to the good in our lives, its up to us to make it happen.

Lets turn away from these thoughts and turn back to the Scripturesfull of the wise counsel of a Father who knows us, truly knows us and what we need to thrive. Rather than scarcity and control, Gods gift to us is abundance and his eternal presence. Against the cacophony of commands the world offers us every day God speaks to us from the Scriptures:

Be careful to obey all the commands I am giving you today. Then you will live and multiply, and you will enter and occupy the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors. Remember how the Lord your God led you through the wilderness for these forty years, humbling you and testing you to prove your character, and to find out whether or not you would obey his commands. Yes, he humbled you by letting you go hungry and then feeding you with manna, a food previously unknown to you and your ancestors. He did it to teach you that people do not live by bread alone; rather, we live by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. For all these forty years your clothes didnt wear out, and your feet didnt blister or swell. Think about it: Just as a parent disciplines a child, the Lord your God disciplines you for your own good. (Deuteronomy 8:15)