Stewardship Of Self

Often, when we think of stewardship, we think of money or possessions. This podcast focuses on the stewardship of self. After all, the first thing God entrusted us with is our person and our personal development. This podcast walks through how we view ourselves, our gifts, and our relationship with God.

Transcript

Hello everybody.

My name is Jamila Perry and welcome to today's episode of Help My Unbelief.

Now this is where we talk about practical applications of biblical principles and we talk about the challenging aspects of being a Christian.

So today's topic is about stewardship.

Now I know that normally when we're talking about stewardship,

We're talking about finances,

We're talking about physical items that are placed in our care and how we manage those items and how we manage those financial resources.

But I think that stewardship is bigger than that.

And so today I want to really talk about stewardship in a couple of other areas,

Specifically the stewardship of yourself and the stewardship of other people.

So this is already,

It's going to be at least a two-part series.

So for today's episode,

Let's talk about yourself.

So let's start with you because believe it or not,

How you handle what's given to you.

And when I say what's given to you,

I'm talking about what's internally given to you.

We're going to get away from the external as much as possible.

So whatever is inside of you,

Whatever is dormant inside of you or whatever you've discovered about yourself,

Your personality,

Your gifts,

Your talents,

However you want to quantify it.

Some things you may know about yourself,

Some things you may not know.

And for what you do know,

You may or may not be using it to the maximum potential.

But my first point,

Let me not get ahead of myself,

Is how you handle what's been given to you is directly influenced by how you see yourself and how you see your relationship with God.

Now I understand that even as I said,

That this is a Christian broadcast,

I understand that everyone has a different descriptor and a different name for God,

Universe,

Divine light,

Great spirit.

So whatever descriptor you use,

Feel free to use it.

I use God.

But hopefully that will not deter you from continuing to listen to the broadcast.

So how you see yourself,

How you manage yourself is greatly influenced by how you see yourself and your relationship with God.

So for example,

If you feel like you have a strong and positive relationship with God,

If you can understand and see his hand and the events of your life and the direction of your life and you feel good about that and you feel good about how you are able to handle life circumstances and things that come your way because you feel that God is with you,

God is leading you and God has strengthened you,

Then you're able to see the blessing in the silver lining even in the most difficult of circumstances.

So it's kind of like the individual,

The servant who was given the five talents by his master because he could see the positiveness and the relationship that he had with the master.

He had no problems going out and selling and trading and doing whatever business there was to be done in order to increase that wealth.

I know we said we would get away from the external stuff,

But I'm just using that as an example.

The freedom and the confidence that he had in that relationship contributed to his willingness and his ability to step out into the world and to exercise whatever abilities were within him,

His business savvy,

His willingness,

His public speaking skills,

Whatever it is,

He was willing to exercise whatever was inside of him to accomplish this task of increasing the master's wealth.

And so when we have that strong,

Positive relationship with God and we're very,

Very confident in that relationship,

Then we're able to pull out our gifts and use them and apply them in any circumstance or situation and not just our gifts,

Our tendencies,

Our personality,

Our patience,

Our kindness,

Our compassion,

Not just the gifts and talents that may be specific to you.

So by the same token,

If you view God as wrathful and punishing,

If you see your life as one trouble after another,

You might have a tendency to mistrust what God gives you,

Believing that it will be taken away or that you will somehow mishandle it.

And I'm not just talking about physical items,

I'm talking about who you are as a person.

You might see the beginnings and the inklings of a gift within yourself,

But then you shy away from it saying,

Well,

I'm not good enough to display this gift.

I'm not as good as other people.

Or if I get out here and try to do this thing,

I'm going to look silly.

And what do I have?

What's so great about me that I would be able to demonstrate this thing?

So if you have this shaky relationship with God,

Then you're going to have a shaky relationship with yourself.

You're not going to have that confidence to look at your life,

To look at the organization of your life and see it as something positive and something meant to bring out the best in you.

Instead,

You'll come off like the servant who was granted the one talent,

The servant who perceived his relationship with the master as a negative one,

Saw the master as someone who was punishing,

Someone who was shrewd and businesslike and only cared about outcomes.

And so if you recall,

For those of you who know the story and those of you who don't,

The servant with the one talent went and buried that talent in the ground,

Did absolutely nothing with it,

Just simply put it away until the master returned and gave him back the same one talent that he was given.

And so a lot of times when we have that fearful relationship with God,

We're mistrustful of God.

We may even question whether or not God exists.

I'm just going to include those folks in the mix here for whoever is listening.

Then we have a tendency to limit ourselves,

To limit our expression,

To limit our own abilities because we're mistrustful of what's going on around us.

So of course in any situation we have our extremes.

We have our super confident Christians,

Super confident people who believe in the life that has been ordered before them.

They can see the God,

They can see the divine in everything that's happening around them.

And then on the other extreme,

We have the people who are extremely mistrustful,

Might see life as inconsistent,

Difficult to manage one trouble after another.

So we have those extremes.

And then of course we have the majority middle,

Everyone who kind of falls into that average category where we have a positive relationship with God or we have a somewhat consistent view of God,

But there's a lot of room for growth.

So we're kind of like that servant that was granted the two talents.

He was given more than the person with the one talent,

But not given as much as the servant with the five talents.

But even with the two,

Even though the resource that he was trusted with was smaller,

He still had a measure of confidence to go out and use his skills,

His public speaking skills,

His business savvy skills,

And to double what he was given,

Even though he wasn't given as much as the other people.

So that's kind of that happy middle.

We have a decent relationship with God,

But there's a lot more room for growth as far as developing what's within us and being at the highest that God wants us to be.

Now,

When I say that,

Understand that we all,

Our definition of our best potential is an individual definition.

And what I mean by that is that we can't compare ourselves to other people.

We all are here to play a very specific role,

To demonstrate a very specific talent,

To exercise a very specific trait or traits within ourselves that only we can do for who we are.

So when I talk about being your best,

I don't mean being your best compared to whatever someone else is doing.

I mean,

Being your best essentially compared against yourself and what you are experiencing and what you see within yourself.

So let's dig a little deeper into this.

Let's talk about your life,

Your life as the very first thing that God entrusted to you.

Okay.

So my first question,

How do you treat yourself?

Do you put yourself on a pedestal thinking that you're better than everybody else?

Or do you put yourself in the basement thinking that you're the worst of the worst and that any,

Anybody is better than you?

Do you give yourself your best chance?

Do you see where life lines up and there are opportunities for you to show your best self and you go for it?

Or do you shy away from every opportunity,

Not wanting to get beyond the box that you've put yourself in?

Do you express your God-given talent,

Your God-given abilities?

Do you express them with the confidence of what's been put inside of you,

What's in your heart?

Or do you let other people tell you what you should be doing,

What you could be doing?

Do you let other people define for you,

What's best for you?

So those are just some questions to ask yourself.

And so,

So right now is the perfect time for you to do a self-assessment.

Doesn't matter what's going on in the world,

What's going on in your life,

This is the perfect time to do a self-assessment.

Now even as I'm saying that,

I want you to realize that this is going to be a little bit tricky.

It's going to be a little bit tricky because you're going to be tempted to analyze what's outside of you.

You're going to be tempted to analyze your self-success through your job,

How you're doing on your job.

Are you at the job that you want to be at?

Are you at the highest position in your job?

Or you're going to want to judge yourself through your finances.

Are you making enough money?

Are you making more than enough money?

Are you making the best money?

This is,

But I'm not talking about that.

Do not,

This is not about evaluating your external accomplishments.

This is an internal assessment.

So,

So we're looking at,

Or I'm asking you to look at what's inside of you.

So ask yourself these questions.

Number one question,

Do I love myself?

Do I believe that God loves me?

Do I believe that my existence is on purpose?

Do I believe that I am an important contributing factor to this great jigsaw puzzle that we call humanity?

Do I love myself?

Do I understand that I am the only one who can do what I do the way I do it?

I'm the only one.

If I don't do it,

It doesn't get done.

Do I understand that?

Do I love myself?

Now we are always taught to shy away from self-love.

We're always taught,

Don't think about myself,

Put someone else first.

Okay.

So let me go ahead and clarify for you what I'm talking about,

Because there's a difference between loving yourself and being selfish.

Loving yourself keeps you connected to God.

You recognize that your life has a purpose.

You recognize that God has a use for you and an intent to use you to impact your humanity around you in whatever capacity you're going to impact.

So loving yourself is you acknowledging your importance that you have a purpose here,

That you're not just wasting time.

You're not just sitting until.

Now let's contrast that against being selfish.

Being selfish is what disconnects you from God.

Selfish is what either makes you think that you're better than or worse than,

Because you can be selfish and think that you're worse than other people.

It's a disconnection from God because you're either overvaluing or undervaluing what God intends with you.

So that is selfish.

It's an arrogant belief in the superiority of your limited understanding.

You think that you know better or you think that you know worse,

But whatever it is,

You believe more in your own personal perspective than you do in the divine perspective.

That is selfish.

So we're not talking about selfish.

We're talking about loving yourself as you're going through this self assessment and understanding and looking at the stewardship of your life,

The stewardship of you.

So the way you see yourself,

As I said before,

The way you see yourself impacts what God can do with you.

You know,

We are literally vessels.

We are light shiners,

But if we don't believe in who we are,

Then how strongly can the light shine through us?

So if you don't shine the candle that you've been given,

How can you graduate to a flashlight?

And then how can you graduate to a flood light?

So we have to do this self assessment or it is important to do this self assessment so we can understand do we even love ourselves?

Do we even trust or love or understand that God loves us?

Do we even trust our connection to God and the reason why we're even here?

Because you got to have that before you can outwardly express anything about yourself or do it to any kind of effectiveness.

And hopefully you want to be the most effective that you can be in your life,

But you've got to value yourself first.

So like I said,

If you're not willing to shine that candle that you've been given right now,

Which seems really small,

If you're not even willing to work with that,

How are you going to get to the flashlight?

How are you going to get to the flood light?

If you're not willing to exercise on five pound weights,

Then how do you graduate to the 25 pound weights?

How do you graduate to the weights beyond that?

So you got to be willing to not only love yourself enough to acknowledge yourself,

But then be willing to,

To start moving in the way that God intended for you to move.

So how do you become a better you?

Well,

The first thing I would suggest,

And this is merely my suggestion,

Make your relationship with God consistent.

So,

Because not only do you need to recognize,

Understand,

Believe that God is your source of strength.

God is the one that's organizing your life experience to help bring out your highest potential.

That's why I said earlier,

Do not compare yourself to other people because what they're experiencing in their lives to bring out the best in them is not going to be the same as what you experience to bring out the best in you.

So make your relationship with God consistent because really God is the only one you can talk to about what's going on in your life.

God's the only one you can talk to about understanding how your life is being organized and,

And,

And that famous favorite question of why,

Why is this happening to me?

Why me?

Why,

Why,

Why?

You need to talk to God about that.

Cause certainly there's no other human being who can answer that question for you.

They can speculate,

But they really can't answer the question.

So make your relationship with God consistent.

And again,

Let me remind you,

Even though I'm saying God,

Because I'm talking from a Christian perspective,

Insert your understanding of divinity in that place.

So make your relationship consistent.

And then I want you to understand the concept that your advancement,

The development of you,

The development of your character,

The development of your gift and talent is in the trials,

Not in the comfort.

We grow in adversity.

That is talked about in the Bible.

That's talked about in all of these other orientations are everyone is starting to realize.

And so I'm going to reemphasize that our growth is in the trial,

Not in the comfort.

So just think about it.

Like I said earlier,

How do you develop physical endurance?

Do you develop it in activity or do you develop it on the couch?

If you're going to be physically strong,

If you're going to have great lung capacity,

If you're going to have great legs,

Great arms,

Great,

Whatever,

You're not going to develop that sitting on the couch.

You're going to have to go out and do something,

Do a lot of something.

So your advancement is in the trial of having to get up and push yourself and go through pain and discomfort and pushing yourself to your maximum ability.

And then the next day,

Pushing yourself a little bit further,

You're going to have to get up and do something.

You're going to have to go through that trial because that's where your advancement is.

The comfort of the couch,

You're not going to,

You're not going to advance.

If anything,

The more you sit still,

The more you decline.

So just know that,

Understand the concept that your advancement is in the trials,

Not in the comfort.

So don't measure your advancement by the accomplishment on the other side.

Don't measure it by the dollar signs.

Don't measure it by the power or the status.

That's a mistake.

Measure it by your ability to move through the trials.

How quickly,

How slowly,

How,

How,

How do you look at it?

How do you manage it?

How do you respond?

That's where you need to look at how well you're advancing in this life.

So let those comfortable places of your life be kind of like a sanctuary of peace,

A place of restoration.

And then you jump back into the trials.

So you might be out there running your trial marathons,

Timing yourself,

Doing this long distance running,

And then come sit on the couch to relax with the understanding that at some point you're going to get back up off that couch and get back out there to do some more training.

So let's let,

Let's let those comfortable places in our lives,

Those places where we have achieved or those places where we have a comfort in the style that we handle those things,

Those things,

Those are nice places of accomplishment,

But we're not going to live there because we still have other things to develop.

So you can look at those places that are comfortable to you.

So like consider that maybe you're an extremely kind person,

But,

But you,

You need to work on your patience.

So,

So you can look at the fact that you've achieved a certain level of kindness and,

And draw inspiration from that.

Well,

If I can do this,

Then I know I can do that,

But don't live there.

Don't,

Don't sit in that space of,

Of only being kind.

You've got to go through the trials that,

That grow your patience as well.

But,

But we're going to keep talking about this.

So like I said,

Let the comfortable places of your life be a sanctuary of peace and restoration,

And then jump back into those trials and then understand secondary to that concept or an extension of that concept that everything that is a challenge for you is meant to grow you.

Everything that is a challenge for you is meant to grow you.

So don't minimize your discomfort if you don't see anybody else having a problem with this.

So again,

Going back to patients,

If you're trying to grow your patients and you know,

You have a great amount or a great lack of patience when it comes to standing in line in the grocery store,

That is your training ground.

That is your trial.

Don't look around and say,

Well,

You know what?

I don't know why I'm the only one that gets upset in the grocery line.

Everybody else is cool.

Everybody else is waiting.

I'm the one that's over here ready to go up in arms.

Don't compare yourself to anybody else.

This is your training ground.

You need to increase your patience.

Well,

The best way to increase patience is to find yourself in a situation where normally you don't have enough patience.

So don't be bothered if no one else is going through what you're going through.

Your trials are for you.

These are your training moments.

So just remember that and don't become discouraged if you're the only one going through it or if you share your experience with someone and they don't get it.

I don't know why you got a problem.

It's just a grocery store.

There's a line.

There's always a line.

You just,

You know,

It moves.

Nobody wants to live in the grocery store.

Why,

You know,

Calm down.

Don't,

Don't go by what other people tell you.

Invest in your experience.

Understand,

Okay,

I do need to work on my patience.

This is a trouble spot for me.

So I'm going to focus on what this is.

And by extension,

Anytime you're asking for character traits to be developed within yourself,

I want to be more patient.

I want to be more kind.

I want to be more compassionate.

And you have these romantic notions of,

Of how that's going to happen.

Like,

Like you're going to go and,

And volunteer somewhere or you're going to go and put yourself amongst an unfortunate group of people and,

And,

And just somehow absorb some kind of great extension of your capacity from these romanticized situations.

That is not how it works.

Okay.

If you're looking to increase your capacity for things like patients,

Kindness,

Compassion,

These are all grown in the most unpleasant of situations.

There's nothing romantic about growing patients because you're not going to,

Because if you want to grow patients,

Kindness,

Compassion,

You're going to be in situations with the most challenging people,

People who don't want you around,

People who are not impressed by you and people who will not be grateful for whatever it is you bring to the table.

And you have to be able to deal with that because you're not,

Because you're there training,

Essentially you're there training.

And,

You know,

And we can all say,

Well,

You know,

I always thought I was patient enough,

But all these situations keep popping up.

Hmm.

Then maybe you're not patient enough.

And this is not a judgment or an indictment against you.

It just means that whatever it is that,

That God ultimately wants you to do,

You need a little more patience.

You need a little more compassion.

You need a little more kindness.

And so these situations keep coming,

Or you need to continue the practice of it because,

You know,

You can only be patient when you're practicing patience.

There's no,

There's no graduation point where you're just like,

Here's my certificate and patience.

And you're just going to be that.

No,

You're always using it is what I'm saying.

So,

So we'll always experience on some level,

Uh,

Challenges that will continue to give us opportunity to exercise these,

Uh,

Basic traits,

But either way understand that,

That whenever,

Whatever it is you want to develop about yourself,

Whatever it is you want to focus on,

Understand that the,

The advancement is in the trial and not in the comfort.

Um,

And also just also take into consideration,

And this is something that I had to learn from myself,

That your,

Your advancement,

Your trial,

It will be at some point,

The very thing that you despise,

The very situation that you despise,

Even the very situation that you fear.

Now,

Of course,

Over time you're,

You're graduating and you're growing and you're learning.

And so,

But you are going to come to that point because why,

Because that's a block that you have and God doesn't want us to have any blocks.

God doesn't want us to have any exceptions,

Uh,

Uh,

To our experience and whatever it is that,

That we're going to,

We're,

That he's going to have us to do in our lives.

And so usually the thing that you fear or the thing that you despise,

You're going to be put in that situation at some point in your development,

Because you got to deal with that and you got to understand and you got to trust that,

That who you've been developing,

Who you've been training to be,

Your relationship with God and the consistency of that you are prepared and you are able to deal with that,

But you have to know it.

And of course you won't know it until you've experienced it.

So that's going to come as well.

See,

That's why I say at the beginning of this assessment process,

What is your relationship with God?

What is your relationship with the divine?

What is your understanding?

Because you need to strengthen that first.

Cause you're going to need that support.

You're going to need that foundation.

You're going to need that understanding as you're going through these experiences because otherwise,

As it is with all of us humans,

When things get extraordinarily uncomfortable,

You're going to want to back out.

You're going to want to fall back to that place of comfort.

You're going to want to live in that place of comfort.

So you really need to have that consistent understanding of your relationship with God,

The divine,

Whatever you want to call it,

In order for you to be able to move forward and advance in your trials.

Now for everything that I've said,

There's all,

There's also that one unspoken corner that is very difficult to talk about,

But I want to bring it up.

So what about those situations,

Those circumstances,

Those experiences that are horrible,

That are extremely terrible,

The experiences that don't happen to everybody,

Abuse,

Addiction,

Some,

Some version of trauma.

What about that?

Where is the God in that?

So my answer to that question is that God uses everything to advance us.

And I know that's very hard to believe,

But God uses everything,

Every experience to advance us.

And so we go through things to develop a sensitivity to those situations that we would otherwise not understand.

So no,

It's not anything you'll ask for,

Certainly not.

And it's not a punishment,

Even if some of your willful choices helped to take you down certain roads.

Because believe it or not,

God was already aware of who you are.

God was already aware of what you were going to do,

Of how you were going to see things,

And with the choices that you were going to make.

And he still saw fit to bring you into existence,

To bring you into this experience.

So there's a value in you that's there.

So even in these uniquely terrible,

Horrible circumstances,

He's developing something in you that requires a deeper well,

That requires a greater abundance of gifting than what may be granted to anybody else.

Now,

Have everybody that I've ever spoken with,

Talked to casually or worked with,

Everyone who's had these types of experiences have all said the same thing to me.

And that is that they have a perspective and they have an understanding that no training manual can provide,

That no degree can provide,

That they can see,

And I don't know how they do it,

But they do,

They can see that similarity of pain,

That similarity of experience in another human being that would be invisible to those of us who've never gone through those things.

They're able to touch,

They're able to reach that place inside that fellow human being in a way that nobody else can.

And they can shine the brightest of lights through the most unlikeliest of vessels.

And so to conclude all of this,

I say,

Look at all of yourself.

Don't hide any aspect of yourself away from your assessment.

Be brutally honest about how you've handled yourself.

Go to God,

Assess and assure your foundation in him,

And then start your training.

Thank you so much for listening.

I'll see you at the next episode when we talk about our stewardship with other people.

Thank you and I'll see you next time.

This is Jamila Perry and this is the podcast series,

Help My Unbelief.

Reviews

Wow, this was powerful! First, I do see you are in Kinston. Very interesting, I am from New Bern and I believe I went to school with your Brother. Anywhoo, this message is deep, and I want to say thank you 💗. I am going through a time of self analysis. I am practicing the way, focusing on all aspects of Christian living. I am in a deep phase of silence and solitude. Also drilling in on self care and love. I want to see God as the loving Father he is for I know he sees me as his loving daughter. I just have to show up for me.

Revelatory!! I am not identified with any one religion, but this talk reached right into the heart of my experience and allowed me to find a path. Bless you!!!!🙏🏼

I’ve been doing my fifth step with my sponsor over the last couple of days and had to admit to some pretty painful flaws and perspectives and deeds. So I came to I.T. to get help with change. I thought maybe your talk would be about finances, and in some ways it was, but…God spoke through you, telling me that I have a deeper well, that I’m meant to keep persevering to grow and help others like me. Or that I am right now in the middle of a growth period. Thank you.

Absolutely exquisite and refreshing insights that really resonated and gave me a new perspective on facing my struggles with faith, courage and conviction! Bookmarking and will share with others. May God continue to bless you and this fabulous work you are doing is sharing your God-given talents and charisims 🙏🏽🥰Namaste.

Very real, very wise, and so well delivered. Thank you so much Jamila 🌱🪴🌿🌳

Thank you Jamila. You are amazing. Just when I got to the point I felt stuck, you had the right formula to keep me moving forward. I analyzed my current situation.

I’m so impressed and grateful! God is good! I was able to realize and embrace the experiences of the challenges God offers me. I feel blessed.

God bless you 🌷🙏❤️

Today, God decided to speaker me through Jamila Perry. Hearing this has changed heart. Thank you. 🙏❤️🌎

Thank you so much Jamila, for blessing us with this wonderful and stimulating podcast. As I was pausing and journaling, I realised what you said. Unshaking faith in God is what I need as my foundation in order to believe I am loved, unique and have a purpose in the world. I am still working on this! But your words are really helping lead me on this path. Thanks so much and God bless you.

Good words! Sounds like Step 4: Made a fearless moral inventory.... Things I neglected for too long caused a lot of pain, which still reverberates today. But I continue to grow through it all. Praying that my experience will help others too. Thank you 🙏🏼

Jamila❣️ SO EXCITED to see this new offering here on Insight Timer! 😃
Thank you for this WONDERFULLY VALUABLE Teaching! As usual, I found it very Informative, full of WISDOM and INSPIRATIONAL. 🙏🏻💕

Interesting! Looking forward to your next one on stewardship.