Ep 798
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[00:00:00] Hey, Hey, what's up, my man? It's Athea Sam here. Welcome to unleash the man within. Thank you so much for listening. So glad you're here today. We're going to talk about stewardship and why real men steward. Well, and I'm excited to jump into that. Look, before I do that, you know, we're answering questions live on air here, starting in June, and I want to give you a chance to submit your questions.
We're getting quite a good influx and I really appreciate that. And I just wanted to let you know that if you have something that's percolating in your heart and you want to get some specific expert guidance from myself and my lead coach, [00:01:00] Sean Bonito, we're giving you a chance to do that. The link is in the show notes for you to submit your questions.
And we would love to see them. We'd love to feel them and hopefully get you on here and give you some good advice to help you deepen your recovery journey and become a man of integrity. Let's get into today's episode. Shall we? Okay. We're talking about stewardship and I cannot stress to you enough how important I think this subject is.
I, you know, I look around and I see the men of this world. And I feel like we have become really bad stewards. We just had Josh Katsadorian speak recently to our clients. And we've had him on the podcast before as well. He was on the podcast maybe a year ago. Josh has this this great message about the initial commandments of God in Genesis.
And this is what we were talking about with our clients, you know, and he was talking about the mandate that God gave us to have dominion over the earth and to subdue it and what that means. A huge part of it if you kind of look back at the text [00:02:00] is God's basically saying, look, I created all of this for you.
I created all this for you to take care of it, which means that if the earth is not in the same condition that God entrusted us with, if it's not in the same condition that it was in when he entrusted it to us, that's a better way to say it. Then you and I have some work to do because he has he told us to have dominion over the earth and to subdue it This is a mandate.
This wasn't a recommendation or a suggestion when it's convenient This is something he's asked us to do real men are called to steward Well, no you and I you know one single person cannot change the world The world, we can't change the entire planet, but we can do something. And whether that means, you know, maybe you're a visionary, you're a pioneer.
Maybe it does mean that you actually have some grandiose ideas that could really change the course and the trajectory of history. Man, I think that's amazing, and I know we have a bunch of you that are like that listening to this show. Thank you for your listenership, and go on, we're cheering you. I love the visionaries, I am a visionary [00:03:00] myself.
But I know a lot of you listening are saying, well, I don't know if I'm going to be doing something grandiose and everybody's going to know who I am. Yeah, totally fine. That definitely does not have to be the case. But we make the world a better place by stewarding what God has given us. And this is actually where it starts.
It's not in the big picture of visionaries. They're not the people who make this world a better place, truly. It's actually the people that you'll never hear about. The people who live their lives humbly and modestly day to day in proper humility, we're going to talk about that in a couple of episodes.
Those are the people that really change this world. And I, I just believe that those of you listening, if you can understand what it means to be a better steward then, then this world can actually be improved and we can start to like the world we live in just a little bit more. Okay rule number one.
Okay, when we talk about stewardship, we are not talking about money. Alright, money is one of several subcategories of stewardship. But the basic principles of stewardship actually have a lot more to do with relationship. I've been having some interesting conversations with my wife about friends lately, and [00:04:00] I'm, I'm just more and more struck at the difference between men and women as time goes on in marriage.
I don't know if anybody else has experienced that, but like, I feel like when my wife and I dated, we were united more on our commonalities than on our differences. And we had plenty of differences, so it's not like I was completely oblivious that my wife was different from me. But, I think I was just a lot more conscious of what we had in common.
And as we get further along in married life now, scales are starting to switch places and I find myself way more aware of our differences than I do of our similarities and our commonalities. Now, don't get me wrong, we have plenty in common still and definitely enough to keep our marriage anchored and healthy and tethered to the Lord.
Okay, there's no issues there, but the differences become more prominent and more aware of them. And You know, I have probably six really good friends that I've maintained friendships with over the years in varying degrees and certain seasons where it was really heightened and, you know, many other seasons where it wasn't so much, but I still consider them my close friends and, you [00:05:00] know, some of them are, they, they're really bad at responding to texts.
Some of them are really bad at responding to calls. Some of them are great, you know, and they'll text all the time and they'll call and whatever, and a bunch of them are in the middle. I don't really care. You know, they're my friends. I have history with them. And you know, whether I see them once a year or not, it just, I don't know.
I, it doesn't, it doesn't upset me and it doesn't bother me. And my wife is not like that, you know, and she requires a little bit more steady connection and commitment from them. And I think that's totally fair. But anyways, the interesting thing is we've been discussing these differences, right? And what I realized is Her concept of what it looks like to steward a relationship and a friendship is different than mine.
But we both have the same goals, okay? So, I'm not, I'm not going to give you a formula for how to steward better today. What I want to give you are some guiding concepts and principles that are going to allow you to steward better. And I personally believe that relationships are the thing we steward first.
I think it's relationships, I think it's our well being, and then it's our [00:06:00] resources. I would say those are the three things. That we are called to steward really well relationships, our wellbeing and our resources or relationships, health and our resources. If we can store these three things really, really well, then I think, I think we can, we can be confident that we are going to have probably very fulfilling lives and that we're going to see a lot of prosperity.
Again, I'm not talking about becoming millionaires, but prosperity in the biblical sense, the, the, the biblical word for, for prosperity, Hebrew or Greek is a very well rounded term where there is health and there's vibrancy. And there's a, Vitality that wouldn't otherwise exist. That's what I'm talking about when I say prosperity.
Okay, now let's talk about three things. Okay, there's three things that you should always have in place. If you want to be good steward of again relationships. your well being or resources. Okay. Number one [00:07:00] is faithfulness. Ah, this is the big one. Okay. Faithfulness, man. Oh, man. Oh, man. We need to talk about this.
So let's talk about well being. Let's talk about taking care of your physical body. How faithful are you To your physical health. Now right away, you're going to talk about your exercise, right? You're going to tell me whether or not you exercise or whether or not you lift weights or whether or not you go for a run.
That's part of it. What about your diet? What about your sleep? You know, what about stretching and mobility? I mean, I don't, again, I'm just giving you some examples, but if we, if we're called to be stewards, you know, if what 1st Corinthians 6 says is true, which is that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit and that every temple of God is holy.
If that's actually true, then, then we have to be faithful to take care of this thing. In every single arena, it's not just enough to go to the gym, but the diet, the sleep, all that stuff. Faithfulness means that we are diligent. Okay. It means that we're not just tackling one facet, but we're actually Tackling it comprehensively and some [00:08:00] seasons we might focus on one more than the other no problem But in general we're being holistic and and secondly that we're being consistent So faithfulness is about holistic and consistent activity in this area, in this arena.
Let's talk about the most important relationship you'll have other than your connection to God. And that is, of course, your marriage. It's not enough for me to just be a good listener, even though being a good listener is really important.
Having faithfulness in my marriage means that I, I am actually well rounded. I, I listen well, but I can express myself in a way that's appropriate. That's respectful. That's healthy. It's conducive to our connection. You know, it, it, it means that I'm, I'm considering all the different aspects of the relationship.
Faithfulness. Okay. Very important. Faithfulness. Consistence and diligence. Second thing is gratitude. Okay. I, this, I cannot tell you again how important this is and how much Sophia struggles to [00:09:00] do this. Well, I'm the kind of guy that sets goals. And when we hit the goal, I say, what's next. I always forget that we need to celebrate.
I forget to just pause, you know, to just wake up and smell the roses a little bit. I struggle with it. But truthfully, if I want to be a good steward of my relationships and my well being, And my resources, I need to give God things, you know, our, our financial situation has changed over the last couple of years as our company has grown and we've been able to reach more people and serve more people.
And I'm very grateful to God. And sometimes the way that I think about money and stress about money, I just think, man, How did I get here? Like Sathya three years ago would have been so grateful to be in this position. And it really gives me perspective, but it also does expose that I'm not always operating from a place of gratitude and it's very difficult to multiply or to prosper.
Things that you aren't grateful for. Jesus, when he [00:10:00] fed the 5, 000, he took the fish and he took the bread and it says that he looked towards heaven and he gave thanks and then he multiplied it and fed the 5, 000, but the first thing he did is he gave thanks. So there's something about gratitude that actually enables us to be better stewards and to bring more increase.
And that is true of relationships, well being. And of course your resources came. And last but not least. So if we want to be faithful where we're being consistent and we're being diligent, we want to have gratitude and we want that to be kind of embedded into our heart. We want everything to come from that place.
The third thing we want to do is we want to demand increase. Okay. I really do believe this. If you look at the parable of the talents in Matthew 25, the parable there, or the takeaway there rather from the parable is. Brain increase, brain increase. Now, I've heard some people say, you know, that means if you give [00:11:00] 800, then God will bring back more than 800 into your bank account.
I don't know that it really works that way. But I will say this, you know, when, when I stepped into business, my goal was for the business to be profitable. And I, of course, that makes sense. Like, of course, it's nice to have profit and whatever. The reason that was my goal though, first and foremost, is because it's biblical.
God, God is looking for people who steward well, and as we learn from the parable of the talents, those who stewarded what they were given well, were given more. Okay? And here's the last thing, okay? This is the bonus piece. Which is that we want to make sure that we are always working with what we've been given.
Okay? Bad stewards. Here's what bad stewards do. Bad stewards say, well, if I had X, Y, Z. If I had what so and so has, then I could do it. Bad stewards don't make the most of what they have, and they end up with less as a result. Okay. And the parable of the talents is the best example [00:12:00] for that. So what are you going to do to be a true man of God?
Somebody who actually stewards what he has? Well, well, first of all, we want to make sure we're clear about what we're talking about. We're talking about stewarding your relationships, stewarding your wellbeing. And stewarding your resources. And the way we're going to do that is also through three methods, through being faithful, being grateful, and bringing increase to whatever area it is that God has called us to steward.
And the last thing I want to say is pick an area, like what's an area where you maybe are not seeing a lot of increase and a lot of breakthrough. What do you need to go and apply? Have you been faithful? Are you being consistent and diligent? You know, being holistic in your approach? Are you grateful for what god's given you so far in this area?
You know, this it's home to me I'm i'm working on my physique a little bit more right now and I didn't used to think about this, but now that I'm worried, not worried, but now that I'm focused on my physique, I pay more attention to other people's physiques. And I catch myself comparing sometimes instead of saying, [00:13:00] actually, I've come a really long way, you know, and I like the last two and a half years, my physique has already changed.
Being grateful goes a really long way. And the last thing is we want to demand increase. And that means that that whatever we do put our hands to, We want to expect God to increase it. We want to expect him to bless it. And that might look different. But we, we always want to make sure that it's in the avenue of increase because he is the God of the increase.
That's just who he is. That's how he works. So that's everything for today. I think this is really important. And I think that if you and I can steward our resources better, then we can step into that biblical manhood to have dominion over the earth and to subdue it. And I, I'm crazy enough to think we could actually make the world a better place.
So if you want to join me in that. Apply something you learned today. I'd love to hear all about it. In the meantime, God bless you guys. Thank you so much for listening. We'll talk soon. Bye bye. [00:14:00] [00:15:00]
