Thoughts on the Word Stewardship

*This article was originally penned for the Pinnacle, a monthly publication of our church. The core idea comes from the final lesson in Financial Peace University by Dave Ramsey entitled "The Great Misunderstanding."

Stewardship is a word that tends to pop up about this time of year. To some of us it can be negative, meaning only capital campaigns, expectations, guilt, and/or pressure toward opening our wallets. How can a word that has represented God's trust in us cause so much squirming in the pews?

Tell you what, in order to better understand Stewardship, how about taking a trip back to medieval times. Castles and lands were typically owned by Lords (and Kings in a larger region). Wealth of the Lord was largely based on the amount of land owned and the bounty of harvests. But, as you can imagine, sometimes Lords had to be away doing whatever Lords did: military service, managing another property, sailing off for adventure. So they left the responsibility of their wealth with a Steward, an administrative official who oversaw the affairs of the Lord while they were away. They didn’t own any of it, yet were in charge of seeing that everything was taken care of and managed well.

In modern terms, it would probably be best to describe the position of Steward as an Asset Manager. Picture someone owning “assets”, money is perhaps the easiest to picture, passing control of them to an Asset Manager trusting that they will manage it well. What would you look for in a good Asset Manager?

Jesus tells His followers the “Parable of the Talents” in Matthew 25:14-30. The story unfolds with a man leaving some money in the hands of his servants or, by the definition we are examining, Asset Managers. One he gave 5 talents, another he gave 2, and still another a single talent. Now these were significant sums. Some commentaries say a talent was worth 20 years of a laborer’s pay! When the man returned he commended the first two for putting the money to good use saying, “Well done.” The third Asset Manager failed to make a return on any investment because of fear and his talent was given to the first.

It is an important shift to recognize that God owns everything and we are merely His Asset Managers. Our time is God’s. Our gifts or talents are God’s. Our “hard-earned” money or treasures are His. It is through what we do with these “assets” that shows God’s character in our lives and extends God’s hand to the world around us. For me, this adds purpose to things like balancing my checkbook or how I spend my free time. Let the fact that we are Stewards of the riches of the Creator of the Universe embolden and empower you to live for God as never before.

Rock Springs Buttress

Alli and I explored a new climbing area (for us) this past Saturday: Rock Springs Buttress. The crag is just out of of the south boundary of Jackson Hole Mountain resort and features very good multi-pitch, traditional or sport climbing. Approaching the climbs is a bit of a hump, but the pre-Cambrian rock classic to the Tetons is worth the effort.

We went into the day eying several 5.8 grade climbs with the first choice being the Guide's Route. However, it was occupied by the time we arrived and we settled on Chuck's Road to Thailand, which crosses the upper reaches of the Exum Arrete. The guide book lays out the climb in 6 pitches, the first of which is a 5.6 approach to a large belay bench. The second pitch (5.8) follows the left side of a chimney with some tricky sequences to a good belay ledge with a bolted anchor. Pitch three starts off with a airy step across the chimney to 5.7 face climbing.

A couple bolts and an old piton (yes I clipped it, why not?) took us around to a crack system, past a belay station (we climbed pitch 3 and 4 together) and up a chimney with comfortable stemming moves to the upper belay station. Our perch felt like an eagles nest! I watched a cow moose and a calf frolic through the valley bottom while Alli followed up the pitch easily.

Above, pitch 5 looked like great sport climbing but we were eyeing clouds building to the south and decided to cap our climbing adventure here for the day rather than risk the "epic" on the first multi-pitch outing of the year.

A few raps later, we were reunited with our gear and got ready for the hike out. We opted to go up rather than down and just over an hour later topped out at 10,450 feet at the top of the Tram. Before our free ride down, we took advantage of a delicious waffle in Corbet's cabin.

Commuting: May 2016

After best intentions of commuting on studded tires through the winter, we're back on the bike this spring commuting to work and running errands. Alli and I are very fortunate to live where a bike path connects us all the way into town. Jackson has one of the best pathway programs around, particularly for a small western-Wyoming town. But then again, we wind up having a lot of amenities that western towns of our size don't, so not all that surprising.

Anyway that brings me to the reason for this post: a monthly record of bike commuting miles! During the month of May I rode my bike 111.8 miles running errands in town, riding to work, to church, and else where. I haven't take the time to sit down to make a mileage goal for this year, but I do want to keep riding throughout the calendar year. I don't think 100 miles a month is reasonable, but ending the year with close to 600 miles total sounds pretty good. At the gas mileage of our van (about 16 mpg), that equates to roughly 38 gallons of fuel saved!

We'll see if we can keep this thing going for the rest of the year...and beyond. Half the fun will be kitting out the bike to make it more and more pleasurable. The other half of the adventure will be figuring out the best clothing system for all kinds of weather. We had some weeks of good rain in May and I was pleased with my clothing system staying relatively dry.

Stay tuned for more monthly updates!