Stewardship

Today I read Doctrine and Covenants section 51, a section given to Edward Partridge, the Bishop of the church in regards to the Saints that were coming to Ohio from the eastern states. This section is about the law of consecration and about caring for those immigrant saints. The one word that kept coming back to me as I read this section was: stewardship.

Stewardship comes from the word steward, which means to manage another person's property or affairs, particularly financial affairs, and first appeared around 900 A.D. How appropriate a word is stewardship for everything related to the gospel? We do not actually own anything and are only put in charge of it for a short period of time. Everything belongs to the Lord and we are only asked to take good care of it, including His children. Perhaps most especially His children.

The law of consecration is essentially, at its roots, recognizing that everything is the Lord's and that we don't actually own anything. You give all of your possessions to the church, the Bishop then counsels with you about the needs of you and your family and then gives you stewardship over all the property and possessions again. This is how it has always been explained to me and how I have always understood it. This is also the most efficient way for the Lord to care for His children who are doing without.

The Lord has said before that the earth has enough and to spare for all of its children, and if the people would have true charity, everyone would be taken care of. But we are not just given stewardship over material things. As we mentioned above, our children are also a stewardship that we will one day be held accountable to God for. As will all the animals we have come into contact with especially pets. All life is sacred to God and we will be held accountable to how we used or spent that life. As we talked about a few days ago, animals are meant to be used for food by mankind, but we are not to waste life for no purpose and I do believe God will hold us accountable for any animals we may have killed for sport or out of spite.

We are also given stewardship over members of the church. Bishops have stewardship over their entire ward, Stake Presidents over the stake, Elder's Quorum presidents over the Elder's quorum, home teachers over the families they are assigned. I think you get the idea. The reason President Monson is so concerned with finding those lost souls who have strayed from the fold is because he knows we will all one day stand before God and none of us want to hear Him ask us, "I put Charlie in your way to help him. Why did you not help him?". There is a movie that I really like called the Four Feathers. It is about a man from England who goes to the desert of Africa to help his friends and befriends one of the natives. At one point, the hero of the story needs to go into a prison to find his friend and the native knows that it is essentially death for him to do so and refuses to help saying that he will not be responsible for his death. The hero asks him how the other could be responsible for his death. What he didn't understand is what the native knew right away and told him many times during the movie: God put the Englishman in his way and he is thus responsible for him.

Cain once asked the Lord if he was his brother's keeper. We are not told the Lord's response but the answer is YES, you are! We are all given stewardship over the welfare of those around us and are asked by our Heavenly Father to take care of his children while He is not present. King Benjamin made this clear in his wonderful sermon found in Mosiah 4. I believe I have mentioned once that the real consequence of sin is the loss of privilege. It is a privilege to be able to help those around us and one that not everyone gets in this life. Some are meant to help, others to be helped. We all need help at one point or another in this life, even if it is just as a baby. But it is a rare and wonderful thing to be on the other end and be able to help others. I have read several stories, watched several movies and even played a few video games, where a villain has a moment of redemption before they die and they do something nice for someone else for the first time and they always remark on how nice it feels with an almost sense of awe in their voice. When we perform service for someone else, we feel the Holy Spirit and we are able to feel a bit of the love our Heavenly Father feels for them. It really is a wonderful spirit.

And if you think about it, the spirit of stewardship really is the spirit of charity. Because, like the priesthood, stewardship is all about blessing the lives of others. We are able to feel the Spirit when we give charity to someone else, but that is a blessing given to us by our Father in Heaven. As we take responsibility for those who are put in our way by God to help them in whatever way we can, we will learn the true meaning of stewardship and what the Lord expects of us. I think we will also find it's rather pleasant and not a burden at all. Until tomorrow.