Stewardship
Eila’s preschool curriculum has a large portion devoted to teaching her about stewardship. When I started looking at it, I really liked it but didn’t think it was so important to start with that principle when being kind and respectful are so lacking in the average preschooler. However, the more I think about the idea of stewardship and with what I’ve been learning as I teach her and study on my own, I realize that it is very important. In fact, it was one of the first commandments really. God told Adam and Eve to name the animals and care for them and the garden (and to be fruitful and subdue the earth) – that is what stewardship is all about – taking care of what God has given us.
Until recently, being a good steward for me meant being smart/thoughtful about how I spend money. It might include how I use the gifts God has given me, like organization skills to help out with needs at church along those lines, but it didn’t involve being environmentally conscious at all. Now, that seems like a tragic misunderstanding of this term as well as a horrid undervaluing of all that God has created and entrusted to us. I often thought that those who were interested in taking care of planet earth didn’t have their priorities right (and sometimes those folks do not, but it’s not for me to judge…) because they must care more about this world than the people in it or God. Lately, though, I am beginning to see that caring for God’s creation in nature is not separate from caring for God’s creation in people or loving Him, but really an extension of that and obedience and respect to Him.
I am glad that the preschool curriculum has stewardship has the first character trait being taught and learned. It is exciting to understand that stewardship conducting, supervising, or managing of something; especially : the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one’s care m-w.com I still have a long way to go toward being a good steward (with money or anything else) and I’m taking little steps each week, sometimes being pushed into it and sometimes dragging others along.