Compass Devotional

I was asked by Pastor Jason to do a devotional for tonight. But I’m not sure if I’m
qualified to give it.

After all, I don’t have children. I’m young. So I speak as a younger brother in Christ and
I look up to you all as my mothers and fathers in the faith.

As I was thinking about what to share for tonight, I was thinking about my own life and
what I wish my parents had taught me and shown me if they were Christians early on in my
childhood.

How much more blessed are your children, who are receiving your counsel and
instruction because of your commitment to their spiritual growth.

And so, really, the only kind of encouragement that I can give this evening is an
encouragement to excel even more.

But excel more in what?

If you were to boil life down to a couple of principles, you can view life in two non-
mutually exclusive ways.

You can see yourself as a worshiper, and you can see yourself as a manager, or a steward.

A worshiper is a steward. And a steward is a worshiper.

Whether you are a parent or not, you are God’s steward, because God has entrusted to
you his property.

God has given you your life, your experiences, your money, your job, your belongings,
certain giftings and abilities, your spouse, and your children in proportion to how God made you.

At the end of the day, as you all know, everything that you have is not yours.

We are simply caretakers of God’s stuff.

As a parent, you are a caretaker, especially of God’s children.

At the end of the day, your children are not yours. But God’s.

Because your children belong to God, the ultimate priority as a steward is that they know
God.

A couple of days ago I was watching a clip of this sports documentary called ‘Trophy
Kids’.
 It’s a movie that documents the lives of four parents who push their kids to become
professional athletes.

Interestingly, 3 of the 4 parents live in the South Bay.

I’m all for youth becoming elite athletes, but the way that the parents pushed and berated
their children was appalling.

And the common theme between these parents was that they feared their children
wouldn’t reach their maximum potential.

It was the fear that their children would miss out on their full potential.

And that’s understandable—every parent wants what’s best for their child.

I think it’d be uncommon in the South Bay to find a parent who didn’t want to commit to
the full potential of their children.

Which explains why we have our children playing sports, why we have them taking
music lessons, why we have all these extracurriculars in place for them.

And I think, in part, these are common areas to steward because growth in these areas can
be placed in quantifiable categories.

In a sense, the fruits of practice are far more measurable than the fruits of godliness.

If your kids put in the hours of playing a musical instrument, chances are, they’re going
to get good at it.

If the results aren’t coming through, then there’s always something that they can tweak.

But if your kids put in the hours of reading the Bible, you can’t tell if what they’re
reading is changing their hearts.

And if there does seem to be change, it’s easier to question the authenticity of it than to
accept it as something genuine.

So from all appearances it seems as if it’s easier to steward and invest in a child’s
physical capabilities than it is to invest in a child’s spiritual appetite.

But if there is a fear that is greater than the fear of your child missing out, it’d be the fear
of your missing out on an opportunity to trust God in your stewardship and investment.

Admittedly, tracking spiritual progress in the Christian life is harder to quantify than
tracking sports or academic performance.
 In Colossians 1:28, the apostle Paul saw the Colossians as a stewardship from God and
the goal of all his toil and investment was that the people he wasn’t even related to would mature
in their understanding of Christ.

Paul didn’t know if the outcome of their faith would be proportional to the amount of
time he invested in them.

All that Paul could do and all that we can do as the stewards of our youth is to continue to
invest in their spiritual life and trust that God will give the growth.

How we steward our youth spiritually will give rise to how they steward their lives.

Being a faithful Christian will give meaning to how they are to see playing sports,
playing musical instruments, and doing well academically for the glory of God.

More important than our youth being good at everything that they do is that they are
faithful in everything that they do.

And that’s why I’m so excited that we get to partner together.

We can participate in planting and watering, and see how God gives the increase through
our stewardship and labor.