New Year, Same Gifts: A Call to Faithful Stewardship
The start of a new year always carries a strange tension for me. On one hand, everything feels clean and hopeful—fresh calendars, empty planners, the sense that maybe this time things will be different. On the other hand, I’m way too aware of how quickly those clean, crisp pages fill up with the same patterns, the same busyness, the same good intentions that never quite take root.
We tend to approach January 1st asking what we want to change, add, or improve. Businesses build a month-long marketing plan around your resolutions. Bookstores display 30-day guides to being your best self: how to make more money, how to lose that stubborn 15 pounds, how to gain more influence. Fitness equipment goes on sale. Aesthetically pleasing tupperware floods Instagram feeds.
But lately, a different question has been pressing on my heart: what if this year isn’t about gaining more, but about stewarding what’s already been placed in my hands?
As I prayed into the year ahead, one word kept surfacing: stewardship. Not because I felt like I’m lacking anything, but because I feel exposed to the abundance of how much I’ve already been given. Stewardship isn’t born out of a scarcity-mindset, but out of awareness. It comes from realizing that your life is already full—full of time, influence, opportunities, relationships, and responsibility.
“In the great orchestra we call life, you have an instrument and a song, and you owe it to God to play them both sublimely.”
—Max Lucado
I can’t shake that image. Every one of us enters the new year carrying something old. Not leftovers, but entrusted things. The real question isn’t as easy as, “What do I want this year?” It’s more honest (and uncomfortable): “What has God already trusted me with?”
Scripture doesn’t leave much room for confusion here:
The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it. —Psalm 24:1
“Everything comes from You, and we have given You only what comes from Your hand.” —1 Chronicles 29:14
Stewardship starts with surrendering the illusion of ownership. God owns it. We manage it.
Somewhere along the way, I think stewardship became perceived “church-lingo” for money. And while generosity matters, stewardship reaches far beyond a giving statement. It includes how we spend our time, how we use our gifts, how we steward relationships, how we speak, how we think, and how we respond to opportunity. There’s an old, tired joke that the church just wants your money, but the truth cuts much deeper than that. God doesn’t want your finances nearly as much as He wants your faithfulness. When we reduce stewardship to money alone, it loses its intimacy. It stops asking questions about the heart.
Jesus tells a story called The Parable of the Talents:
“Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more. So also, the one with two bags of gold gained two more. But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.
“After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained give more.’
“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’
“The man with two bags of gold also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with two bags of gold; see, I have gained two more.’
“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’
“Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’
“His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.
“‘So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags. For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.’” —Matthew 25:14-29
A master entrusts his servants with gold/resources, each according to their ability, and then leaves.
Two servants invest what they’re given and see it multiplied.
One servant, gripped by fear, buries his talent in the ground.
For a really long time, I felt sympathy for that servant. I understood his fear. What if he lost it? What if he failed? Wouldn’t it be safer to return it untouched rather than risk ruining something that didn’t belong to him in the first place?
But Jesus doesn’t condemn failure in this story. His judgment falls on inactivity. On the refusal to engage at all. That realization changed the way I read this parable. The faithful servants weren’t celebrated because they were impressive or successful; they were faithful because they took what belonged to their master and did something with it.
“While God gives His gifts freely, He will require a strict accounting of them at the end of the road.” —A.W. Tozer
God isn’t asking you for perfection. He’s asking for participation.
Now this is where stewardship gets uncomfortable. We like to believe we’ll be more generous, more obedient, more faithful later—when we have more time, more money, more clarity, more confidence. I’ve certainly fallen into that trap before. But Scripture dismantles that logic quickly. Faithfulness isn’t proven in abundance; it’s proven in the small, ordinary moments.
“Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much.” —Luke 16:10
You don’t need more. You need obedience.
The smallest acts often matter more than we realize.
“The smallest things become great when God requires them of us; they are small only in themselves; they are always great when they are done for God.” —François Fénelon
“One drop of water helps to swell the ocean; a spark of fire helps to give light to the world.” —Hannah More
No act is insignificant when it’s offered to God. Every conversation carries weight. Every resource carries potential. Stewardship asks us to stop being careless with what we’ve normalized. To stop overlooking what feels too small to matter.
My prayer lately has been, “Lord, help me do what’s in front of me well.”
Stewardship rarely sparkles or gets applauded. It’s often slow, hidden, and cumulative. One of my favorite quotes from Pastor Craig Groeschel is, “You’re going to overestimate what you can do in the short run, but you will vastly underestimate what God can do through a lifetime of faithfulness.” WHEW. Do me a favor and read that again.
You were uniquely created to make a difference in the Kingdom—not by doing everything, but by faithfully doing what God has placed within your reach. God’s trust grows where faithfulness is proven. Let me lovingly sharpen your iron: if you’re stuck in a place of feeling like God hasn’t given you enough, maybe it’s because you haven’t done anything with what He’s already given you.
So as this new year begins, let this be an invitation not to set bigger goals, but to take a deeper inventory.
What has God already placed in your hands?
Are you treating it like it belongs to Him or like it belongs to you?
Where have fear, comparison, or exhaustion convinced you to bury what was meant to be used?
Choosing stewardship as my word for the year means filtering everything through a new lens.
Time: Am I guarding it intentionally or giving it away thoughtlessly?
Talents: Am I using them or hiding them?
Words: Do they bring light or weight?
Relationships: Am I present and invested?
Stewardship reframes the entire conversation. Not, “What will I accomplish this year?”, but “What will I steward well?”
So play your instrument. Sing your song. Break out your shovel and start digging out whatever you’ve buried. Do it faithfully—for His glory.
Lord, everything I have has come from You. Forgive me for the ways I’ve treated Your gifts as optional or disposable. Show me what You’ve entrusted to me, and give me the courage to use it. Teach me to be faithful in the small, ordinary places. Shape my obedience into worship. This year, help me steward my life in a way that honors You. Amen.