S9.9 | The Essential Role of Stewardship in Our Physical and Mental Health
In this episode of *Affirming Truths*, Carla dives into the crucial topic of stewardship. Often overlooked, stewardship plays a vital role in how we manage various aspects of our lives—including our physical health, mental and emotional well-being, spiritual gifts, and natural talents. Join Carla as she explores the biblical importance of stewardship and offers practical insights on how to glorify God by taking responsible management of the resources He has given us.
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Key Takeaways
Understanding Stewardship:
Stewardship involves the responsible management of resources, including finances, material possessions, the environment, and personal well-being. It's a crucial component for living out God's plans and purposes effectively.
Personal Stewardship:
Beyond material resources, personal stewardship focuses on taking care of your physical health, mental and emotional well-being, spiritual gifts, and natural talents. Responsible stewardship in these areas is necessary for being effective in God's kingdom.
God's Purpose and CalL:
Effective stewardship ensures you are prepared to fulfill God’s call over your life. Poor stewardship can hinder you from receiving greater responsibilities and fulfilling your divine purpose.
Connect With Carla:
Foundations to Healing—-> https://www.carlaarges.com/renewing-hope
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Resources:
5 Steps to Building Resiliency
Affirming Truths Facebook Community
5 Tips for Overcoming a Negative Body Image
Who You Say I Am Biblical Affirmation Cards
TRANSCRIPT
Carla Arges [00:00:08]:
Hey friends. Welcome to affirming truths. I'm your friend and host, Carla Arges. This show is a safe place to share our struggles, grow in faith, and root our identity in Christ.
Carla Arges [00:00:20]:
My hope is that you will leave.
Carla Arges [00:00:22]:
Each episode feeling encouraged in your journey. Subscribe so you don't miss an episode.
Carla Arges [00:00:27]:
And it would mean the world to.
Carla Arges [00:00:28]:
Me if you would leave a review. I am so glad you're here. Let's get started. Hello, friends. Welcome to this episode of affirming truths.
Carla Arges [00:00:40]:
We are at the end of July. I cannot believe it. We are on the back half of this year, and I'm hoping that you are making headway in your healing and you're making headway in learning to navigate with mental illness and all of that. And if you're not, that's one of the things I do, is I come alongside you either through one on one coaching or my courses, and I help you navigate and I help you heal through the scripture lens, but with science as well, neuroscience and research and proven methodologies. Before we dive into today's topic, I just want to do a little bit of housekeeping. I am traveling for the next few weeks. In August, I am taking my dad to his little tiny village in Sicily. My dad's cognition has really been declining.
Carla Arges [00:01:43]:
He is definitely weaker physically, and he was feeling a little bit down, and I could tell that he was maybe bordering on a little bit of depression. He is aware that his cognition is declining and it's causing him stress. And so I thought a nice pick me up to give him something to look forward to would be to take him back to his hometown in Sicily and arrange for him to see his three surviving siblings. So I am going with my dad because he can't travel alone to help take care of him and help him navigate all of that. And so I am lining up three interview episodes for August. I'm talking with some incredible women in the area and space of trauma and healing and so many great conversations that I hope that you will tune into. I know I used to do interviews regularly on my bonus Thursday, which I said for season nine, we're not having bonus Thursday anymore until my studies are done. But I hope that you will tune into these interviews, that you will be encouraged by them, that you will be challenged where you need to be challenged, and that they will really just speak to you.
Carla Arges [00:03:10]:
So the next three episodes, interviews, and I hope that they bless you the way that they bless me in conducting them. So today I want to talk to you about stewardship, and that may sound like a boring topic. But this is so crucial. When I see women who are just stuck, when I see women who are living out the impacts of their trauma, who are imprisoned by the past, when I see women who are not stable in their mental illness, when I see women that are not fully living in God's plans and purposes, they're not living out that God dream that is in their heart. Oftentimes it comes down to a lack of stewardship. And let me explain. So stewardship is the job of taking care of something, right? It's responsible management of resources. And there's some areas that we often hear about stewardship, financial being one of them.
Carla Arges [00:04:22]:
But there are different categories of stewardship. Yes, there is financial stewardship, and the Bible talks a lot about that. There's material stewardship, right? So how do we steward the resources that we have, our home, our car, our whatever. There's environmental stewardship. How are we taking care of the resource of the world that God gave us? And then there's personal stewardship. And this is really where I want to hone in on today. Personal stewardship looks like taking care of responsible management of our physical, our mental, emotional, our spiritual gifts and our natural talents. So I'll say that again, it is taken care of and responsible management of our physical health, our mental and emotional health, our spiritual giftings and our natural talents.
Carla Arges [00:05:22]:
And what is the point of stewardship? Ultimately? The point of stewardship is to glorify God and to help build his kingdom, right? We steward things in a way that glorifies God, that helps us build our kingdom, meaning that we are able to effectively walk in the plans and purposes over our lives, right? We have to be effective in our call. And when we don't steward our personal, our physical, mental, emotional gifts, talents, when we don't steward those, we fail to be effective in our building of the kingdom, and we fail to be able to fully give God the glory. In first corinthians four two, it says, now it is required that those who have been given a trust must faithful. It is required, it is a biblical requirement for you to be faithful with the resources God has given you. And God has given you health. God has given you men mental capacity and emotional health. God has given you spiritual gifts. God has blessed you with natural talents, and it is required that you are faithful in them in being responsible.
Carla Arges [00:06:42]:
First, Peter 410 says, each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms. It is a grace that God has given you that you are here today, it is grace that you have breath in your lungs. And so often we waste this grace by not being responsible. Now, I always say trauma, mental illness is not our fault, but it still is our responsibility to take ownership over the impacts that they have in our life. It is our responsibility to take ownership over our healing, not that we do it in isolation. Yes, we partner with the Holy Spirit, but he comes alongside us as we move forward. He doesn't do the work for us. He equips us to do the work.
Carla Arges [00:07:39]:
So if you're not doing the work, there's nothing there for the Holy Spirit to equip you for, right? It is your responsibility. If you're not taking care of your body, if you're not moving your body, if you're not fueling your body in a way that glorifies God, if you're not resting your body the way God has called you to rest, you are not being a responsible management of your physical health, because we need physical health the best that we can to the extent that God graces us with physical health to be effective for his kingdom. This is why when Timothy kept suffering from stomach illnesses from contaminated water, Paul said, mix wine with your water so you could be effective in your role as pastor. He kept being sick, and it kept interrupting. And Paul was telling him, you need to take responsibility over your physical health. You need to do the things that are required to be your best so that you can be effective in the place that God has called you. If you are not stewarding well your physical health, you are not giving God the glory, and you are not building the kingdom the way you could be in an effective way. This is true for our mental and emotional health.
Carla Arges [00:08:59]:
Health. If you are stuck in trauma, if you have diagnosed mental illness that you're not addressing, you are not being a responsible steward. Luke 1610 says, whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much. And whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. God is going to give you purpose and call and incredible plans measured by how effective you're going to be. And if he sees that you are not taking responsibility over your mental and emotional health so that you can be effective, then he's not going to give you greater responsibility. He's not going to give you greater call. You have to show that you can be responsible.
Carla Arges [00:09:53]:
That means doing the work to heal your trauma. That means doing what's necessary to stabilize your mental illness. You can't put your head in the ground like an ostrich. You can't sweep it under the rug. Trauma will show up everywhere you go. Everywhere you go, from people pleasing to anger to high anxiety, it will show up wherever you go until you address it. It needs to be felt as it needs to be seen. And that's not to say we need to relive it, but we absolutely have to deal with the impacts it's having on our present.
Carla Arges [00:10:30]:
We need to learn how to leave that past in the past and operate from a place of empowerment in the present, not slave to the past events. And we only do that through healing, through addressing the trauma, through addressing our emotional dysregulation. God gave us natural talents. He's given us spiritual gifts. The spiritual gifts are to edify and build the body of Christ. The dream God planted in your heart, which may be stifled right now because of past trauma, but there's a dream God planted in your heart and he has both naturally gifted you and supernaturally gifted you in order to fulfill that dream. But it's never going to happen if you're not stewarding yourself. Well, if you're not using your gifts to God's glory, if you're not using your talents to God's glory, and that doesn't mean you'll be in ministry.
Carla Arges [00:11:34]:
You could be a graphic designer, you could work in a mail room, and God will equip you for ministry in the place that he plants you. But you are not going to be in a position to effectively use your gifts and talents if you are held back by physical or mental and emotional bondage. Again, what happened to you to cause your trauma? The fact that you're living with mental illness is not your fault. It is the product of living in a broken world. However, stewarding yourself in light of that is your responsibility. It is your job to take care of it. Why to the glory of God? Why to the building of his kingdom? Why? Because, as we just read in corinthians, it is required, it is actually an act of obedience to deal with our physical and mental health. It is an act of obedience to steward that, well, to make ourselves the most effective we can be for the kingdom.
Carla Arges [00:12:45]:
So are you being obedient? If you had to do an honest reflection of your physical health, your mental health, your emotional health, how you're leveraging your talents and gifts, if you had to give honest reflection, could you stand proudly before God? Could you be one of those servants that had the talents and multiplied the talents? Or would you be one of the servants that buried the talents and did not multiply and did not bring glory to the master and did not build the kingdom. What's your honest reflection? What level of responsibility are you taking for yourself? What level of ownership? What are your habits? Where are you reaching out for help? Where are you investing or not investing in being able to steward your physical and mental health? Well, are you acting in obedience in this area? And if you're not, and if you feel a little ouch or a little conviction, conviction is a gift and it's a gift and a mercy to God to show us where we're starting to get off course so we can get back on course. You can decide today to become a responsible manager of the resource, of your health. You can decide today to take ownership over your healing, over your habits, over your wellness. You can decide that today and there's so many resources that can help you. I have so many podcast episodes that can help you. I have foundations to healing, which is a self paced course that can help you. I have an incredible program launching in September, redeem your story where we're not only going to look at the impacts of trauma, but we're going to dream again.
Carla Arges [00:14:48]:
We're going to reawaken our God dreams. We're going to create God centered goals and develop plans to move forward in those goals. It's going to be an incredible program. Get on the waitlist now if you want. I'm only taking ten women into this program so it will be intimate and effective and supportive and the waitlist gets early access to enroll. I don't know if all ten spots will go with the waitlist. I have no idea how God's going to move in this program if it's just going to be one lady that shows up or if I'm going to have ten full and a waitlist for the next cohort. I have no idea how God's going to move, but if it's something that you think God is calling you to, then get on the waitlist.
Carla Arges [00:15:35]:
The link is in the show notes, but you need to take responsibility for your physical and mental health. No one else is going to do it for you and it is an act of obedience. So my affirming truth for you today is I will steward myself to the glory of my father and I go to first corinthians 619 20. Oh, do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. You were bought with a price. Are you glorifying God in how you're taking care of yourself? Are you glorifying God in how you're supporting your mental and physical health? Are you glorifying God by making sure you're at your best to be the most effective for your kingdom? Call reflect on that this week, and I'll talk to you later.
Carla Arges [00:16:44]:
Thanks for joining me today. I hope we're already friends on social media, but if we're not, come find me on Instagram at Carla Arges or at affirming truth. Can't wait to see you back here next week. Bye, friends.