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I want to talk about stewardship and in particular, how we steward our choices. I want to talk about this is because I think when we think about how we steward our choices, it actually empowers us as leaders—in whatever capacity you’re leading—to lead out of a God-given sense of self-worth.
Now the church loves to talk about stewardship. We hear messages on how we steward our finances, how we steward our time, how we steward our resources. And these are really important things. But I can’t tell you the last time, if ever, I heard a sermon on stewarding our choices.
What I want to focus on is that this choice to function consistently out of a biblically defined understanding of our self-worth, particularly as it relates to our role as leaders, as women, it can have a profound impact on how we view and use our emotions; how we navigate boundaries, and it can actually enhance our ability for valuable risk-taking.
But let’s stop and think about this because let’s be honest, choices stress us out. We face choices every day. I start off the day with “What am I going to wear?” “What am I going to look like when I head into my meetings?” And then I start thinking about “What am I going to eat for breakfast?” And some of you were probably thinking about “What am I going to feed my kids or spouse for breakfast?”
And then I think about, “Okay, what tasks do I have to focus on at work today?” Because definitely there’s no way I’m getting everything on my to do list done. And then I move onto, “I know we’ve got performance improvement plans coming up. So, do I need to let this person know what their outcome is going to be today? How is that going to make them feel? How’s that going to make me feel?”
I’m also a psychologist, and so I have clients that come into my office and they’re wrestling with even bigger choices, things like “Should I stay in my marriage—even though my husband was selfish and cheated and doesn’t act like he wants to be married anymore?” Or perhaps you’re faced with a choice that says, “Do I follow this doctor’s suggestion, or do I get a second opinion?”
Choices are all around us. A huge part of my career is focused on helping people who get stuck in those choices. They’re dealing with the consequence of perhaps past choices, or they’re paralyzed with fear over future choices.
And, you know, I think back to the Fall in Genesis. The Old Testament displays from the beginning of creation how God designed us to be gifted with the ability to choose. This was given to no other element of creation. And what did we do? We kind of messed it up.
And the consequence is that our daily choices, the things that we have to choose, they leave us feeling pretty up in the air. We’re not grounded. I think it is because just like Adam and Eve did, we’re trying to build routes and choices that are pretty fleeting. Adam and Eve wanted to route themselves in the choice of knowledge instead of the truth of who they were in Christ, which was perfect image bearers of God. We miss this practice of navigating our lives from a launching point of the choice, the one choice that really, truly matters. And that’s what is going to ground us in the midst of everything when everything around us feels like chaos.
We have the choice to fully embrace and act out of a true definition of our self-worth. So how do you steward your choices? It’s a big question. Because when we don’t steward our choices, so often, we function from a place of trying to please other people to serve and to maybe sacrifice out of fear of being cast out, not included.
And unfortunately, we oftentimes then find our lives in chaos. If you’re in that circumstance, you might be asking yourself, “How do I remain grounded when my choices around me don’t have me feeling confident?” Perhaps you are feeling uncertain, incapable, uncomfortable, and not grounded at all. But the reality is, God has given us a choice.
We can steward our choice because we all have that right. My students hear this from me every semester when they come to my first class, I’ll tell them “There’s going to be a part in this semester, a point in time where you forget an assignment or something happens in your life or you didn’t plan very well, and you’re going to be tempted to come to me and you’re going to want to say these words: ‘But I didn’t have a choice.’” That is my biggest pet peeve! I do think it’s helpful for you to recognize and reorient to the reality that we always have a choice. Now, let me clarify.
We may not have chosen our current circumstances. You may not choose the status of your relationship or lack thereof. You may not choose the reactions of others to your current leadership choices. You may not choose how other people’s sin splashes onto you or more so how your sin splashes onto others. But we always have the option to choose how we respond. I love what it says in Proverbs 16:9, “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.” I’m going to change it to the degree which says this. The heart of a woman plans her ways, but the Lord establishes her steps because God is speaking to the totality of his creation.
Let’s go back to this idea of being grounded, because here’s the secret.
Being grounded is nothing more, nothing less, than a discipline of choice. It’s a discipline to choose grounding ourselves in a biblically informed decision of our self-worth over what perhaps my emotions might dictate. It’s a discipline to say I am worthy because I’m a daughter of the King—period. I am made in his image, and that makes all the difference.
Here’s the reality. Way too often we’re waiting for heart knowledge to align with head knowledge. We say whether it’s conscious or unconscious, when I get to this point, when I overcome these circumstances, when I get out of this situation or jump over this hurdle, when I find this all-encompassing balance that constantly seems just out of reach, then I’ll be grounded.
We keep telling ourselves we’re going to be grounded when we feel grounded, and that is a lie. You know why? Because we are basing our truth, our reality on a feeling. I am not saying feelings are bad, and I’m also not saying feelings are wrong. No feeling is bad and no feeling is wrong. But those feelings can easily mislead us if we don’t hold them in the context of truth.
Let me give you an example. How often have you allowed these words to creep into your life? Instead of saying,” I feel anxious” it becomes I am anxious. Instead of, “I feel lonely,” you say I am lonely. Or maybe it’s “I feel inadequate,” that becomes I am inadequate. Probably one of the harder ones to wrestle with is instead of “I feel ashamed”— I am ashamed.
You see, without the discipline of choosing truth, our emotions so quickly become our identity. I want you to think back to grade school. Like me, you probably had to choose a language and at least take one or two years of French or Spanish or another foreign language. I chose French. I don’t speak a lick of French today, but I do remember my first day of French class where we spent the entire time conjugating the I am, you are, he is, she is verbs. And we do the same thing with our feelings. Instead of saying, I feel we say I am, and it becomes our identity.
It becomes the ground on which we stand. And then what we’re rooted on is nothing more than quicksand. But like I said, we can be grounded today, right here, right now. Whether it’s a tough and lonely decision or things are working well, and you are excited because we are grounded. As Paul challenged us in Colossians 2:6-7, “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.”
I want to repeat those words. Paul says, “You have been firmly rooted.” It’s a done deal. Everything else from here on up is the building up part. And yes, the building up part is hard and that is where our emotions can so easily cloud our ability to see and experience truth.
Maybe you’re navigating something really difficult right now and you feel angry. You maybe feel disappointed, maybe you feel stuck. Maybe you’re questioning yourself and you feel anxious about your abilities. Maybe you’re saying these words, “I’m afraid,” “I’m a failure.” And what you’re actually doing in that moment is you’re filtering your work through the lens of someone else’s approval. Someone else’s expectations of you, and perhaps that’s leaving you feeling inadequate or incapable. And then you start to check your emotions against your present circumstances, and they become this self-fulfilling prophecy. Others are disappointed in me, so I must be a disappointment. I can’t do this. But God’s Word says we’re worthy even when we feel unworthy.
God’s Word says we’re worthy even when we feel unworthy.
I am a daughter of the King, fully worthy because I’m made in his image and called to reflect that daily. I can feel anxious, but that does not define me. Therefore, I’m not going to behave in an anxious manner. Anxiety motivates me to question everything around me, including my certainty and worth in Christ. The truth of his Word says I can stand firm if I’m feeling afraid. My motivation might be to retreat and withdraw but certainty in my worth in Christ says engage, pursue. My anger might say attack, but certainty in my worth in Christ says listen to understand and not react because we have nothing to lose. To live is Christ and to die is to gain.
And that allows us to take some adventurous and valuable risks. I would argue that our call is to choose to walk in him every day, put one foot in front of the other. Validate those emotions because those feelings are never wrong. I’m feeling overwhelmed and that’s understandable. In truth, the Lord is my rock and my fortress. This risk is terrifying. Terrifying because it means that I’m putting everything, my career, my family, my flourishing, my feelings on the table. I’m putting it all on the line. But that is not my identity or my worth.
My identity is in the maker of the heavens and the earth, the one who made me and you in his image. The Lord has blessed us. The Lord has blessed us with the Sabbath to rest. The Lord has blessed us with the ability to make boundaries, and the Lord has blessed us with solid ground to stand on. As Joshua 24:15 says, “choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve.” Being grounded in the truth that our whole worth starts and stops in being the image bearer of God means that when we are afflicted in every way, we are not crushed—we might be perplexed, but we are not driven to despair.
So, I pray that you can hold on to the choice to step out and lead with courage and boldness in the true identity of who God created you to be.