A letter to myself - Be life's steward.

A letter to myself,

Mike, what if you are just a steward? I am sure you have heard of that concept. You are not the owner of what you own. It’s not yours to claim or keep. You are just its steward. You are a trustee, safeguarding what is entrusted to you. 

As a father, you are a steward of your children’s well being. As a husband, you are a steward of your marriage. As a worker, you are a steward of what you receive at the end of the month. In legal-speak, what is legal title is not beneficial interest. 

And as who you are, you are a steward of what happens to you. Your experiences, good or bad, they are not to be taken personally. For stewardship is not ownership, and you deal with what happens with a calm, third-person perspective, instead of allowing it to swallow you whole, part by part. 

Yes, when failure happens, I know it’s hard to accept. It can be scary too. The future can be uncertain. The pain unbearable. And the grief takes a tight hold. 

But if you are a steward, you are therefore managing the experiences. For they did not happen to you as much as they happened for you to deal with, like a lesson to be studied and learned from. That is what a steward does. He handles them. He manages the crisis, however long it takes. 

He is there from the start to the end. In good times, a steward joins in the celebration. In bad times, in tough times, a steward tarries with faith and hope. He stays put. He never leaves the life behind. 

For this reason, he does not take the pain personally. Yet, this does not mean he denies the pain, the hurts, the emotions. No, there are as real as the blood that bleeds when you cut the flesh. A steward knows that intimately. He is soul deep with the life, but still keeps an arm’s length from it. In other words, he identifies with it, even affected by it for a season, but will not allow himself to be paralysed by it. 

For he knows better than to be in the eye of the storm. Instead, he is the eye looking at the storm, never losing sight until its energy is spent; and it will, eventually. 

He is there when the tears flow. He is there when the nights linger. He is also there when darkness looms. A steward takes responsibility for the experiences he manages. He is accountable to the life. That is his calling, a ministry of presence; most times, a quiet one, unseen. 

But, he also knows the many seasons that a life has to go through. A season to cry. A season to rejoice. A season to be born and a season to bury. Even a season to wait patiently for one season to pass while another lies in wait. 

That overarching season is for a lifetime and the steward readily adopts that perspective because that is the full range of a life’s experience under his oversight. 

And because he sees further, a steward never let the experience of one season overwhelm him. He does not take the hurts and pain to heart. He will not let them distract him. He keeps a distance. He stands firm on what he is called to do. And he strives to fulfill that calling to shepherd the life. 

Even for the experience of success, the steward does not take it personally. He does not let his guard down. He does not let it go to his head. He manages, remember? He does not allow complacency or pride to mar his judgement. He knows a neglect in one season will affect the other. 

Like domino effect, a season in the valley not managed well will spill over to the next. And a season at the summit if allowed to self-indulge in excess will also spill over. A steward will thus fight to keep the balance at both experiential peaks, that is, in the valleys and at the summits. 

That is what the steward is called to do. He plays his role as a third person, taking a long lens’ perspective, and is faithful to see the life through, come what may. He is a shepherd for all seasons, a steward for life. 

So, be life’s steward, Mike. This is the letter’s message. Be one for your own life. And don’t take things so personally. For this too shall pass. Life ought to advance, not shrink. From one season to another. Learn from it, and grow. 

Expand your land, not be trapped in it. Release your grip and don’t hoard it jealously, thinking that it’s yours to keep and rule. Mind you, one day you will be buried in it. And it is an errand for fools.

And let me end by saying that the fruit a steward reaps is maturity and resilience from a lifetime of overcoming, whether in the valley below or at the mountain-top.

Signing off,

Life’s Master-steward. 

(Image by Simon Berger).