3 Reasons to Look at Your Career Through the Eyes of Stewardship

Here Are 3 Good Reasons to Look at Your Professional Life Through the Lens of Stewardship

“She needs to eat.” We can say, “He’s motivated.” They’re making their way up the corporate ranks. Never lose sight of your end goal. “Are you up to the task?”
After finishing college, I spent the first five years fueled by the paradigm of success. The above phrases fizzled and created motivation in me to work hard and prove that I could succeed in a demanding professional setting. I listened to podcasts and read articles on how to map out a prosperous future for oneself.

Over the years, I’ve seen a shift in the paradigm by which religious women and men approach the professional world. Colleagues announced their plans to leave their positions and spoke of opportunities they had received in the form of presents and invites. To help me discern where God was going, friends shared in-depth reflections on what the Holy Spirit was saying to them. They weren’t motivated by the want to create a rock star resume (though that may have been occurring simultaneously), but rather by the desire to make the most of what they had been given. They served as caretakers.

The concept of stewardship, in which one is responsible for ensuring the success of whatever is under one’s care, lacks any kind of exciting paradigm. But its power is just as invigorating as ever. Similar to a river in its prime, its energy pools throughout the duration of the voyage. A stewardship-oriented vocation develops in us a particular posture and attitude in three ways:

1. Being a good steward encourages thankfulness and modesty

A job centered on stewardship is one in which you put others’ needs before your own. To do their jobs, stewards are entrusted with resources that are not their own but which they are given in order to please God. Like the staff God gave Moses in Exodus 4 “so that [the Egyptians] may believe that the Lord [has come],” everything we have received from God demonstrates His omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipotent will. Everything we have—our abilities, our connections with others, our luck in love and in life, and everything else—are His gifts to us. There is nothing more humbling than recognizing that our job trajectories aren’t about our credentials, but about God asking, “Here is what I have for you; would you join me in redeeming my Creation?”

2. The stewardship paradigm directs our attention away from our own agenda and toward God’s

A steward’s actions are guided by their responsibility to the people they serve; without their resources, they would be unable to fulfill their job. If they don’t, they won’t have any idea what strategies to employ or what procedures to follow. Since we are stewards of God’s resources, we should make employment choices with an eye toward how God may best use whatever we have to offer Him, whether it be a friendship with a coworker, knowledge gained via a project, or even things we will never see.

3. The stewardship paradigm dampens the effects of comparison

Finally, it is of little benefit for a steward to compare their actions to those of other stewards, because no two stewards are working with the same context and resources. God’s calls and gifts to everyone of us are unique, just as our own families, communities, and civilizations are. While God’s love may be traced across the universe, the individual manifestations of that love will take on many different forms.

I think of Peter’s question in John 21: “Lord, what about him?” whenever I feel the need to compare my situation with someone else’s. …and Jesus said, “What does that mean to you?” It is God who commands, “Follow me.”

Contrast is pointless if it leads to petty innuendo about who deserves what position in the Kingdom, yet distinctions in situations can’t be overlooked. Much of the early professional guidance I absorbed took for granted my ability to actively choose my profession. The decision to pursue a certain job path or simply to view one’s day-to-day activities as a career rather than a means of subsistence is not made by everyone. Instead, it is a perk of one’s socioeconomic status and cultural background. In spite of this, I maintain that the stewardship paradigm is ubiquitous, even if the freedom to select one’s own vocation is not. God, through Christ, extends an invitation to all people to participate in the redemption of all of creation, and God provides us with the means to accept that invitation.

The success paradigm is exciting, but it may lead to an excessive emphasis on personal gain at the expense of other people and could cause us to lose a chance to be loyal. However, the stewardship paradigm may help us shift our perspective and prepare for a lifelong path of gratefully accepting God’s blessings and concentrating on how we might participate in His plans.

Through the lens of stewardship, we might be like Samuel and always be willing to declare to God, “Here I am…your servant is listening” (1 Samuel 3).