The Feminine Urge to Steward Well

All about "stewarding", a Biblical principle God calls us to to do. We are discussing what it means & how to do it well 

Specifically in regard to money

My Worship Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1ymqW6Yjv7Iw5ZbTan2uuU?si=776OykHPTPCboBo1v2YUNA

Have a beautiful & blessed week! 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, hello. Welcome into the Fruitful Feminine. I am Alexis and I'm so happy that you are here. We are going to be talking about stewarding today. I know that this is a very strange word. We'll get into it, I promise. If this is your first episode, hello and welcome. I'm so, so happy that you're here. This is the space where we talk about Jesus, we talk about feminine energy, how to be that powerful woman that God has made you to be. And today's topic was kind of a request between two different topics that you have been asking me to talk about for a while. So I'm really excited to make this. Those of you who have been here for a while, welcome in. I love having you so much. The two requests that I have received is number one about money. Alexis, can we talk about money? I've been putting this off and putting this off because there's going to need to be multiple episodes just on money itself. And I'm also working on another project that has to do with money that I think will be even better than um one single episode for you. But we're going to be talking about it a little bit today because money in the Bible, those terms together can be quite scary, but they don't have to be. And it can be very, very powerful when you understand what God says about money and how to use it well, how to build wealth, how to understand wealth in general. It is such a gift from God. So we are going to be talking about money today. And we're going to be talking about waste. This was an interesting topic request that I got months ago. Someone had asked Alexis, can you talk about the biblical principle of waste? And I thought, I don't know if I have read about one specifically on waste. Then something happened to me a few weeks ago, which I'll get into, where this was so clear to me, and I thought, whoa, being so wasteful and not caring about uh using what I have well, the definition of stewardship, made my spirit feel very heavy and very low. And so I've just been brainstorming on these topics for the last couple weeks, and I'm really happy to share this episode with you today. So let's get into it now. And also, one more note is if you feel that you have been blocked in your purpose, this episode is going to be especially helpful for you. You'll see when we get into the part about how to be a good steward. First of all, what does the word steward mean? The definition is a person responsible for managing, supervising, or protecting something, especially property, people, and finances. So all throughout the Bible, God is telling us to be a good steward of what he has given us. And there's certain keys in that that he has told us that will help you so much with your finances, with your purpose, with your relationships, and just so much hidden keys of wealth that God has told us that the answer is inside of being a good steward. And one of those keys of wisdom is found in the book of Matthew. This is one of my favorite parables in the world that we are going to talk about. Because I think this story single-handedly ends that lie that money is bad, or you are greedy if you desire money. Money is not bad. Let's make that clear. The love of money is bad. Because when you love money, your heart is full of the treasure of money rather than God, rather than other people. And so anything that we love, put our faith in, trust, or depend on more than God has moved to the position of king in our heart. And that breaks God's heart because he wants that position. There, the single most important command is love the Lord your God with all your heart, your mind, your soul, and your strength. Meaning have no other God before him, worship no no other idols. He stays number one. And the second most important command is love your neighbor as you love yourself. So another episode for another day. However, money is not bad. And Matthew 25 makes that very, very clear. So we're going to read this parable. I don't think we've read it here on the podcast, which actually shocks me because it's one of my favorite parts of the whole Bible. And we're probably going to come back and talk about this parable in another episode because there's so many different directions we could go in with it. But today, what I want to emphasize is look for, look for the scarcity in what I'm about to read. So this is Matthew 25. We're starting at verse 14. It's called Parable of the Three Servants. And one quick note is depending on the translation of your Bible, it will say that either these three servants are given silver or they're given what's called talent. A talent was just another form of currency back in the day. And so your Bible might say something different than mine. This is Jesus speaking. Again, the kingdom of heaven can be illustrated by the story of a man going on a long trip. He called together his servants and entrusted his money to them while he was gone. He gave five bags of silver to one, two bags of silver to another, and one bag of silver to the last, dividing it in proportion to their abilities. He then left on his trip. The servant who received the five bags of silver began to invest the money and earned five more. The servant with two bags of silver also went to work and earned two more. But the servant who received the one bag of silver dug a hole in the ground and hid the master's money. After a long time, their master returned from his trip and called them to give an account of how they had used his money. The servant to whom he had entrusted the five bags of silver came forward with five more and said, Master, you gave me five bags of silver to invest, and I have earned five more. The master was full of praise. Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling the small amount, so now I will give you more responsibilities. Let's celebrate together. The servant who had received the two bags of silver came forward and said, Master, you gave me two bags of silver to invest, and I have earned two more. The master said, Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling the small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let's celebrate together. Then the servant with the one bag of silver came and said, Master, I knew you were a harsh man, harvesting crops you didn't plant and gathering crops you didn't cultivate. I was afraid I would lose your money, so I hid it in the earth. Look, here is your money back. I love this response. But the master replied, You wicked and lazy servant, if you knew I harvested crops I didn't plant and gathered crops I didn't cultivate, why didn't you deposit my money in the bank? At least I could have gotten some interest on it. Then he ordered, Take the money from the servant and give it to the one with the ten bags of silver. To those who use well what they are given, even more will be given, and they will have an abundance. But from those who do nothing, even what little they have will be taken away. Now throw this useless servant into outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Whew, all right. Everyone's digging up the money that they buried. Oh my gosh, I relate to this so much because I used to live in scarcity. I don't know if many of you know this. If you are newer to the podcast, but before I had my business, I was very, very, very broke. I struggled so much with money. I was in so much scarcity with money. I was on government support Medicare for my health insurance because I could not even generate an amount of income that allowed me to have health insurance. And I just remember what it felt like to get money back from taxes instead of have to pay taxes. And that period of my life, I thought, what is going on? Like I feel like I am in this wheel of suffering and I'm scared. And when you're suffering, it's so easy to be scared. But if we look at this last sentence here where it says, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, that's where the master says to throw the servant to. What that means, weeping and gnashing of teeth, is an expression to describe suffering. Because when you suffer, you cry and you grind your teeth because you're stressed. And so a few points in this story. Based on this story. A good steward, they are responsible. They take responsibility for what they are given and they do something with it. A bad steward blames. They look at their circumstance and they blame someone else. This is why there's a difference between natural suffering and self-created suffering. If you are still creating suffering, you will never be a good steward. Because there will always be some obstacle that is, I have air quotations up, causing you to suffer, causing you to struggle, to be in scarcity. I love this story because it gives three different men or women, it gives three different people, all given the same opportunity to do something with money. The only thing that was different was the amount. They all had the same circumstances, they're all servants. Yet only one of them said, the master's at fault for my scarcity, and the other two did not. Another comparison and contrast is for a bad steward, they lead with scarcity, where a good steward, a good steward leads with abundance. And so even the mindset of someone who is a good steward is they're always thinking bigger and they're always looking, how can I take what I have and multiply it? I trust that this will work out for me. I'm faithful that God will that God will take what I have and make it even greater. Someone in scarcity, and whenever I'm in scarcity, I always feel I'm the most disrespectful to God. Because here I am, I have all of us, we have the richest father in the world. Why in the world would scarcity be a part of our vocabulary? Scarcity says, God, I don't trust you. Scarcity says I know better. It's almost a way to play God and say, God, you told me don't fear, but I'm going to ignore that command because I have more faith in myself. I have more faith in my limiting belief that I'm going to lose out, that this isn't going to work out for me. That's where my faith is. It's not in you. That's disrespectful to God. A bad steward, they lead with fear, where a good steward leads with faith. We have that whole episode called How to Have Faith When You Feel Fear. And it's so normal to feel fear. And I love this story too, because the servant that feels fear, what does he do? He stays in his same position and he digs a hole into the earth. I think that's a great metaphor for what we do when we're feeling fear. We freeze. Whereas the good stewards, the servants who doubled their income, they moved. They took action. And a bad steward, they hide where a good steward moves. And basically what I'm seeing is the bad steward, the bad servant in this story, he looked at her circumstances and then moved. But for the good steward, it's the opposite. They move with the expectation that their circumstances have already moved. That is what it means to live with faith. It's not living by what we've seen, it's living by what God has told us. It's living by what we feel in our heart. I love that Bible verse that talks about how faith is the evidence of things unseen. It is the substance of what we have hoped for. And I love it because I'm such a logical person where I like research and substance. The thing with God is He tells us your faith is the evidence. Your hope is the substance. And so I remember even when I was struggling with my income, I remember thinking, okay, I need to see the income to believe that it's possible. I need to see it in my bank account. But that's not how God worked. For me, he told me the exact amount that I would be making for my business, which is what I am making right now, still. That started off as a vision. It started off as a sentence to me. And my job was to have the faith. It wasn't to see the number and say, okay, now I trust you, God. It's always backwards to how we think. If we go back to verse 15, there's another really key word here. And where is it? It says that the master gave to the servants in proportion to their abilities. And I love that. It's such a strong key. There's something that I had said on YouTube a while ago, and I was talking about how related to your purpose and taking action on the on the purpose and the dream that God has given you. If you do not take action on the dream God has given you, you will start to lose the ability to do so. Of course, you can always get it back, but it's going to be way harder. Just like the servant. Of course, he could go and dig up the money and he could go and invest it, but he's already lost time. And now he has to do all this work to dig it up. Where if he had just followed and been faithful, then he wouldn't be working backwards and going through the struggle. And I had received a lot of comments back. This isn't true, Alexis. You can't lose the ability. Then when I read this part in the Bible where it talks about to those who use well what they are given, even more will be given, and they will have an abundance. But from those who do nothing, even what little they have will be taken away. And I think that's so powerful to say, not to put fear in us, but to put fire in us and say, we better use the talents and the silver and the resources that God has, because it's not for us to just sit on. It's not for us to dig into the earth and bury. It is for us to have movement and impact and to use for God's kingdom and to be a good steward. Otherwise, we will lose it. And there will be the weeping and gnashing of teeth for us, meaning there will be suffering for us. Another part here is in verse 21 when it says, faithful with a small amount. If you are faithful with a small amount, you will be given more later. I love this for two reasons. Number one, because it it kind of tells us that we what we have right now that we are scared to even play with or give or use well, it tells us that's just a little bit. That's not the fullest amount that God wants to even give you. You're starting off with the one bag of silver. If we're so scared to lose that, how can we hold five bags of silver? And the problem for a lot of us right now is we're dreaming, God, we want this income, we want this relationship, we want this type of home, we want five bags of silver. But God's going, you're not even using the one bag of silver that I've given you. How in the world could I give you five? Your rubber band would snap. All my girls on YouTube just got that. And so my question for you is what are you doing with the current silver that God's given you? What are you doing with it? A lot of the times I will pray about my future kids. I cannot wait to be a mom. I would love to have so many kids. And sometimes when I'm uh playing with Gus or giving him a bath or doing things around my house, I'm imagining the way that I care for even my dog right now is preparing me to be a mom. If I lose my patience with Gus, how am I gonna be patient with my kids? And I always think, oh no, no, no, but a dog and kids are different. And God quickly reminds me, no, Alexis, your kids will be even more difficult. Just before this episode, I was playing with Gus, and I always do some mental stimulation so that he gets really tired. And I had some treats in my hand, and I was going to uh bend down and put them inside of this uh brain toy that he has, and he just grabbed one of them out of my hand, and I thought, excuse me. And I thought, wow, this is just a fraction of how my kids will be. My mom always tells me, the hardest thing when you become a mom is to be disciplined and not burst out laughing or screaming in fury or laughing. There's so many times where Gus is doing something bad, something like eating a tissue or doing something he's not supposed to. And I have to actually turn my head so that he doesn't see me smile or laugh because it's time for me to be disciplined in that moment. And I think this is such good practice. He is just my dog, he's my baby. But I have to even practice being a good steward with him, and it has challenged me in a lot more ways than I expected. So, what has God given you now that you're saying this is just one bag? Hint, that's just the beginning, and second hint, you won't have the five bags of silver until you're being excellent with the one that you currently have. And I think Jesus does this for our protection because imagine we had five bags of silver, but we only had the capacity to hold one, and we don't invest the silver how we should, or we lose it, or we don't handle it well. That lesson would be a lot harder to learn than with one bag of silver. And so there's a reason for the order of God's steps. Why is Jesus sharing this parable? So, right before this in Matthew 25, he is speaking with the people that he's teaching to, and he's talking about how important it is to always be on guard because you never know when he will return. You never know when end times will be. And when the world ends and we are taken up to heaven and we begin our new life, that eternal life will be so different than it is now. For example, the treasure that we have on earth is maybe money or love or possessions, but the earth, but the heavenly treasure is going to be so different. God doesn't quite tell us what it is, but he mentions that it will far surpass any abundance, any treasure that we can think of on earth. And so when we are a good steward with our earthly possessions, we are preparing to be a better steward with eternal possessions. Everything that we are doing now in our life, it is temporary. It is for our eternal life, our impact, our purpose. When we even share the love of God, I think there's like everything. I think I've been reading Ecclesiastes too much, but everything in life, when you look at it compared to eternal life, it's meaningless. Even the jobs that we have, the hobbies that we do, it's fun and it's enjoyable. But everything is going to dissolve. We came to earth naked, not having anything, not having any title, no attachments. That's how we are going to leave. It's such a short life. And so Jesus is saying it's more important to steward wealth for your eternal life than to worry about all these earthly things. There are people that are going to be in heaven because you share Jesus with them. There are uh treasures that you're going to have in heaven. Because of the impact that you made on earth. There's intimacy and depth that you're going to have with the Lord when you get to heaven because of how you steward your relationship with him here on earth. And so Jesus is sharing this story to say, always be on guard. The master is returning. That parable where the master left and then comes back, that's Jesus saying, When I die on the cross, I am going to leave, but I will be back. And he's also telling us you must be faithful while you are awaiting this return. So that's the backstory of stewarding. And now let's get into the practical side of how to be a good steward. I have about five points for you. Number one, prioritize discipline over indulgence. And this can be confusing, right? Especially when we think about masculine and feminine energy. And indulgence. When I say indulgence, this is not so much a self-care bath or a shopping spree or going swimming at the ocean. Indulgence is feeding your flesh to a point where your spirit becomes empty. You know those points when you've eaten too much junk food or too much dessert and you just kind of feel sick and heavy? Or if you scroll too much on social media, you feel exhausted but anxious. Or if you have been taking too much time off of work and maybe you're playing too much, or if you give your body too much rest, you feel you don't feel good. It feels good in the moment to satisfy the flesh, but the spirit feels heavy and weak after. Every time I sleep in too late, like if I get 10 hours of sleep, okay, that's nice a couple times a year. But if I get 10 hours of sleep on a regular basis, I do not feel good. I would always wonder how is it when I was a kid that I feel better waking up at 6 a.m. for school, like I feel motivated, I feel happy, then on winter break when I'm sleeping 10, 11 hours of the day and on my Nintendo DS all day, I don't feel good. But I feel like this should be the happiest time of my life. It's pure indulgence. God has designed the chemistry of our brains to love discipline and to thrive on discipline. I always share this, so I apologize if you've heard this 20 times already. But there is some research that has just blown my mind and made me love discipline. And this research, it it studied the part of our brain called the anterior mid-singulate cortex. This area of the brain is responsible for our willpower to exist. Or sorry, not our willpower, our will to exist. Our momentum to stay alive, our momentum to have energy and to create and to feel good. This part of the brain that is responsible for our will to live either grows or it shrinks. Do you want to guess what grows it and what shrinks it? The area of the brain grows when we are disciplined and shrinks when we overindulge, when we prioritize too much pleasure. And when this research is looking at the brains of the younger generations today, it's so small. And what is to blame is how much overindulgence our phones, technology, convenience of life, porn, overeating, how much convenience culture and consumption culture gives us an open door of pleasure. That young kids are struggling to stay focused, and I hate to even say this, struggling to feel a will to live. The suicide rates are through the roof right now. Why? Because this area of the brain that is responsible for making us want to stay alive has shrunk. It has shrunk way more than God designed it to ever be. And so I love the Bible because it was written over 2,000 years ago, yet it's still the most relevant book to our life. It's the only book that reads us. And it tells us again and again and again: be disciplined, steward well what you have, don't overindulge. Like you can drink wine, but don't get drunk. You can enjoy the fine things of life, but don't make money and jewelry and possessions your priority. It tells us again and again how to be disciplined. It says, fathers and mothers, discipline your children. If you love them, you just might save their life. And I think about that verse in Proverbs where God tells parents, if you love your kids, discipline them, you just might save their life. When I read that years ago, I was like, oh, that's yeah, I'm sure my mom loved that verse growing up. But the research today is showing that God was a million times ahead of science. Lives are saved through discipline because suicide rates go down. People feel happy and motivated to literally be alive. And God already knew this. This is why the more I research science, the more I believe in God and love his word. Because I think, God, anything that you say, I just believe now. Because over and over and over, science, psychology, my life uh situations have confirmed what you said is the best. So I might as well just stick with it, even if I don't understand why. And so on this note of prioritizing discipline over indulgence, I did a fast last week, and after I was fasting, I noticed something about myself. I noticed that my desire to consume, well, this always happens, goes down so much. But specifically, I was so conscious of waste. Something about me is because I love to clean. I go through paper towels like crazy. After every meal, every snack, I'm wiping down the counters. I love it, it's therapeutic. However, I run through paper towels like crazy. And after my fast, I remember going to rip a paper towel off one day and thinking, do I really need to use a paper towel right now? Look at all of these paper towels that I've already used. Can I use something smaller like a napkin? And I just started thinking about how that throughout that day, how much cleanser I use, how much lotion, body wash, perfume. I had this desire to waste and consume less after fasting. My best self always comes alive after fasting because it's like everything that the world has put on me or that myself has put on me, it gets taken off and I can see clearly, I can taste clearly, I can feel much more sensitively. That's why after I fast, I'm not really on Instagram much. I might seem a little MIA on my stories, and I apologize for that, but it's because I have no desire to open up an app where my brain is stressed with all this new information to consume. And so I started thinking about that woman who had asked, and I really, really hope that she's listening to this episode right now, who asked, Can you talk about the biblical principle of waste? Because I never saw it before, but now I absolutely do. Waste does not feel good because it feels like overindulgence. It feels like a lack of care for what I have been given. And it's not that I am not using any paper towels now. No, I use them, but I'm conscious of how I use them. I'm not just ripping them off. I'm realizing this took time to be produced. This is a tree. I'm caring so much more about sustainability and our planet because I have impact when I use stuff. And knowing that we have impact helps us to be a good steward because everything that we do, that we say, that we think has an impact, and you become much more aware of how you're showing up. My mom, she had a friend one time who he had such a unique story where he grew up really, really poor and he built a career for himself and he started making more money. And when he uses uh food or soaps or anything, he uses so much of it. And my mom would always notice this and say, Why do you need to use so much soap? You don't even have any hair. Why do you need that much shampoo? And I would always think about this, like, why does he use so much? And my mom had told me, Well, he grew up very, very poor, and so his thing now is I want to use the maximum of what I can because I didn't have it growing up. And I totally understand that. What I will add though is that he is still in scarcity. Anytime you swing to one end of a pendulum, there's no balance. And using not enough because you're scared, what if this runs out? Or using too much because I didn't have this before. So now I need to make up for this, I need to overindulge. It's scarcity because you feel it could run out, so let me enjoy it while it lasts. I think even the people that live purely in pleasure, where there's no desire to grow relationships, there's no desire to build solid friendships, it's purely just my life, my pleasure, what feels good now, I'm gonna do it. Well, in Ecclesiastes, Solomon, the wealthiest, wisest man, he wrote the whole book of Ecclesiastes. It's full of wisdom, and he talks about everything that he learned being wealthy. And he says very specifically, I think it's in chapter either 11 through 14, one of those. He says something along the lines of fools spend all of their days seeking pleasure, and they will come to ruin. Well, it's because pleasure ruins you, too much pleasure ruins you because you only feed your flesh, and then your spirit is empty. You ache for connection, you ache for intimacy, for depth. God did not design our bodies to be satisfied only through pleasure. That's why there's always an emptiness when we consume things of the world. That's why Jesus says anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. But anyone who drinks the water I give, meaning a relationship with him, will never be thirsty again. So overindulgence kills our spirit, including overconsumption. Ways to be disciplined. You can be disciplined with your body and with your health. You can be disciplined with your spending habits. Even for me, I I feel that spending carelessly, like there's times, and I I love studying this about our cycles, there's times during our cycle where we are so motivated to just spend, spend, spend. And there's other times where we are motivated to save. This is during our ovulation because our body wants to, or not during our ovulation, uh, during our luteal phase because we want to get ready to go into hibernating. And so I notice these phases where I just want to spend, spend, spend. Like I look at how many times I order on Amazon throughout the week, and I I'm ashamed to say this, but sometimes it's five or six. Uh, it's just little things like a cleanser here, or I need more flax seeds or whatever. Convenience culture is killing stewardship because it's taking away our ownership over our own mind, and it's taking away our ability to delay gratification. What I started doing a couple months ago is realizing I want to order on Amazon once or twice a week. I'm gonna get all my lists together and I'm not going to hit that order button until I know everything that I need for the week is in my cart. And if I need something, I'm going to wait until the next week. Because I got to this point where I just didn't feel good carelessly spending money. I felt um, I felt like it was very empty. And so I'm not saying don't invest and play with your money and have fun there, but steward it well because God did not give you the money to throw away for pleasure. He gave you the money to further his kingdom, to build a life that is glorifying to him. And how you know if your life glorifies him, does it match with the fruits of the spirit? Love, joy, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness. Did ordering on Amazon five times a week match with patience? No. So I had to fix that. Another way to honor your discipline over indulgence is with your time. And I was having a conversation with someone recently, and they said, I have a friend who I love hanging out with this person, but they always cancel on me. And how do I approach this conversation with them? Like I feel that they prioritize their alone time, or I just need a mental health night in, or I'm actually not feeling like going out. And I said, Wow, I used to be this friend. And I said, What's going on is actually, no, that's a whole other conversation we'll get into. It has to do with control, at least it did for me. Um, but I told this person that the best friends will inconvenience themselves when it's necessary for the friendship. And for me, I went through a phase where I this happened about two years ago, where I looked at my life and thought, I don't really like hanging out that much. This is when I first moved to Dubai. It was scary, it was new, I didn't have my closest friends from the US, and I I knew at the same time I want to build my friendships. What it took for me to have the amazing, deep, intimate friendships that I have now here in Dubai is I had to start inconveniencing myself, saying yes when I wanted to stay in and what and watch Netflix, uh, staying longer in the conversation when I started to get anxious and say, okay, this is enough. My social battery is running out. It was inconveniencing myself to show up when I didn't want to show up. But realizing these are human people who need me. I have a really, really amazing friend here in Dubai. Her name's Natalia. Hi, Natalia, if you're watching this. And she told me the first time that I had left uh Dubai to go home or to go back to the US, I I remember she told me, she's like, Alexis, if you need me to go and check in on Gus, Gus had stayed here in Dubai. He had a really great place to stay, but still I was scared to leave him. She goes, Alexis, while you're in the US, if you need me to go and check on Gus, I will. If you need me to go water your plants, you let me know. There was a time where my car was in the shop getting some service done, and I asked her, I think I'm, I don't know, are they overcharging me for this? It's scary to go into car shops. And she told me, I will bring my boyfriend and we will come and we will look at the paperwork and look at the prices and make sure that you're not getting taken advantage of. Side note, she lives 40 minutes away from me. And I know in the second, if I texted her, I need you. She would come in a heartbeat. She and friends like this have taught me, inconvenience yourself. That's what it takes to be a good friend. And because of that, our friendship, it has grown so deep and so rich. I feel so safe with her. I'm so grateful for her. You being a good friend creates good friendships. And so inconveniencing your time to start that business idea, God has told you, to serve your community, to care for a friend. Even for me, I I inconvenience my time on purpose by closing my laptop early, listening to voice notes from my family, saying no to Netflix or scrolling so that I can FaceTime my family sometimes. That doesn't always feel convenient for me, but the discipline is worth it. Because anytime I overindulge, ah, I just want to do what feels good for me. I never feel good. And that's not being a good steward of what God has given me. How in the world can I have the relationships? How in the world can I have the income? How in the world can I have the business that I'm praying to God for if I'm not even managing my close relationships well now? So your time, your friendships. I remember praying to God, God, can you give me more time? Like I'm running out of time. This is a few months back. And I was looking at this journal entry the other day and thinking, wow, he really did that. I feel God has stretched my time so massively. And I think, how did this happen? Like I just have more time to do more projects and to take on more clients and to still uh edit my book and do all these things and have my social life. And there's certain things that God told me to do. One of them was limit TikTok to 10 minutes a day. That doesn't include when I'm creating, it's simply scrolling. Now, when I open TikTok, I set a 10-minute timer at a time, and that's all I'm scrolling for. When he told me this, this was back in February, it's now April. I remember thinking, how am I gonna do this? TikTok is my happiness. Well, suddenly I had so much time and energy. Energy to say yes to friends, energy to create. And so managing and stewarding my time well by being disciplined, over indulgence, stretched my time and answered a prayer that I had. So pray for God to help strengthen your discipline. All right, number two. How to be a good steward? Honor God with your income. The best, simplest way to do this is to tithe. I was so scared to tithe. I think I was 22 when I started tithing. Tithing is simply giving the first 10% of your income back to God. This is something that God has told us to do as his children since the Old Testament. And when I would always think, but why does God want us to tithe? Tithing is not for him. God could care less about us giving our money or our possessions to him. It's for us. He is a parent going, this is good for you. Because, first of all, 100% of what we have belongs to God, anyways. He's asking us to give 10%. It's an act of saying, God, I trust you to take my 90% and do with it what I could not even do with 100%. It's the one place in the Bible in Malachi 3.10 when God says, test me. If you give to me, I will fill up your storehouses, meaning your bank accounts, your uh what whatever holds your possessions, I will fill up your storehouses so much that they will be overflowing with abundance. Try it, put me to the test. You can never outgive me. That is what God says. Every single week of my life since 22, that was four years ago now, God has outgiven me with what I have given him. Way, way, way outgiven him. And I know it's because when I was only giving $35 a week, because I was only making $350 a week, God said, tithe. You know what question I asked him right before he told me to tithe? God, how can I start making more money? Tithe. I was like, no, no, no. I asked how to make more money, not get rid of money. He said, tithe. And I'm so thankful that he did because it taught me, open my hand and release. Don't be in so much scarcity that I can't even follow one of his commandments. And what he put in my hand when it was open was the same amount that I was making in a week, I began giving that as my tithe. So honor God with your income. It says in Luke 16.11, if you are untrustworthy handling worldly wealth, who will who will trust you with? Oh, wait, what did I write? I'm sorry, I can't even read my writing right now. Luke 16.11, let me go to it real quick. Um, another verse that I do have written down is it says, use your worldly resources to benefit others and to make friends, which I I think that's so interesting. God says, to make friends. Then when your possessions are gone, they will welcome you to an eternal home. There's so many parts of the Bible where God says, When you have Help that person in need, you're actually helping me. When you give to them, you're actually giving to me. I think that there are people walking on this earth right now that we think are people, but they are not. And they show up to see if we will help them. And then we're going to get to heaven one day, and Jesus will say to us, That was actually me that you helped. There's a part in the New Testament where he says, every time you help someone in need, you are actually helping me. And so that other verse that I was talking about, Luke 16, 11, it says, If you are untrustworthy with worldly wealth, who will trust you with the true riches of heaven? I love that. And to think that the most wealth, like we think a billionaire is so wealthy, we're gonna get to heaven and say, oh, that was nothing. That was cute to have the income of a billionaire. God's definition of wealthy and abundance is so much more than we can even fathom. And so when we're not using our worldly wealth well, how in the world will we use our eternal wealth well? So use our worldly resources to benefit others. How do we do that? Investing into growing his kingdom. So this can look like spiritual maturity. For me, I always remind myself, my money is not for me. That was a huge switch in my business and my income is realizing what am I investing for? Like what am I making money for? When I realized it was not for me, first of all, my income grew. And second of all, I lost attachment to it. And I think that's also what helps your income to grow. Because I realized this is for my future generations, this is for God's kingdom. And creating my business, it'll it gave me security. That world, the worldly wealth from my business gave me security to speak so freely about my faith, about what God has told me to speak about, and to follow my purpose. Real quick on the point about speaking freely, because I have this buffer, not buffer, but because I have an income that has made me feel like I never have to think about scarcity again. What God has done is given me a confidence to share my faith so much more boldly online. It's not the money that's given me the boldness, but it's this idea that I never will take a brand deal that doesn't align with my values. I never will compromise my standards that don't align with my values. Not because the money is there, but because I will never be in a position of scarcity where I even consider, should I compromise my values here so that I can feel safe and be secure? God wants us to have safety and security. He does not want us to be struggling and wondering, God, where is my next paycheck going to come from? He wants us to trust him in those seasons, but he wants us to be secure because abundance is from him. And the more secure we are, the easier it is to follow our purpose. And wealth massively helps with that. For example, because I do not have to have a job, I can do things like create this podcast for you. There's something that God has given you, some idea that He has planted or is planting in you, that if you had freedom of time and money, you would be able to say yes so easily. I could have done this podcast years ago, but now it's so much easier to be generous with my time because I'm not thinking, what can I do to make money? Never once have I thought about how I can monetize this podcast. If it happens, it happens, but that's not my intention. And there's a freedom to follow my purpose because of that. Next is investing into fruit. That is how to be a good steward. And I love this one because it makes it, I'm thinking, how how can I actually talk about how to be a good steward? So the fruits of the spirit, as we talked about, one of them, for example, peace. When we can invest in these fruits of the spirit that God has given us, that is a good way to be a good steward. For example, when I invest into my retirement accounts, and I don't even like saying retirement accounts because I don't plan on actually retiring, uh, my long-term money investments, when I invest in that, I'm very consistent every month, it gives me peace. Because now I feel, okay, I don't have to stress and worry about retirement and work extra hard and say no to parts of my purpose because I'm so focused on money. One of the things with money is even if you feel that you are not um, if if you feel that you're not wealthy and you're thinking, money's not my master, it doesn't control me because I'm not seeking after it. If you live your day based on how your income allows you to, rather than based on what God wants you to and what your soul wants you to, money can still be your master. For an example, when I did not have a lot of money, money was my master because I was always thinking about it. I was always driving to work for it, I was always racing against the clock for it. And so I invested in peace. I invested my money into peace. I invest my money into kindness. For example, something I always wanted to do after becoming financially free was to spoil the people around me, to go on trips with my family, to get my nails done and bring a coffee to my nail lady. I have a nail appointment in one hour, so that's why it's at the top of my mind to do things like um gift people the gift that I want to give to them, just to spoil people with kindness. I wanted to spoil the people around me when I became financially free because I wanted the impact that the five bags of silver would bring. It's not that money equals spoiling people or showing them love, but I knew that my love, that my resources could stretch further if I had more available. And so wealth is such a blessing for from God because it is used to bless his people. And there's certain things that when you are free with money that you can just do and say yes to. And you never know how much that will change someone's life, or you never know if that could be the only seed of Jesus that they ever meet. Because when people know that your generosity is just purely because you want to, it makes them wonder what made them like this. What part of their life do they know that I don't yet? Okay, I know that they talk about God, I know that they live their life very kindly and very freely, but I want that. I want that security and that peace and that love. You investing your love into the world, into your marriage, into your kids, into your business. That love is you being a good steward. And guess what? When you use just a little bit of love, God will give you more. Anything that you want more of, take what you already have and invest more of it. I think to love is to serve and to learn and to help others. And even with gentleness, one of those other fruits of the spirit, when you can be relieved because you are not digging the money into the ground, you're investing it wisely, you are working on building secure finances, it gives you a softness because you're no longer in survival mode. When I was always stressed with money in survival mode, I felt like my jaw was tight, my body was tight, I didn't have time to dance and stretch throughout the day, I didn't have time to take baths. There's a softness that comes to your spirit when you are rested. And so investing in how you can get that rest and that gentleness out of survival mode is going to help you build that fruit. Number four is be the best that you can in your current position. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as though you are working for the Lord, not for human beings or not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. I don't exactly know which uh verse this is, but work what work at whatever you do as though you're working for the Lord. That summarizes everything. So, my question for you is where did God put you? What is your current position? And how can you be a better servant where you are right now? When I was working at my restaurant job, there was a switch for me. I think this happened maybe four months into working there. I hated this job, by the way. It was in a casino, I could smell cigarettes all the time, my feet hurt, I just didn't like the environment, everything was not my calling. But I needed extra income at night, and so I would work this job, and this switch happened where I thought, you know what? Rather than complaining and crying, driving to and from work, how can I make this job the best job that it can be? I know that it's temporary. How can I make it the best? So, little things that I did. I started putting more effort into my hair and makeup. I thought, you know what, let me just get dressed up, let me get dolled up, let me feel good while I'm here. And my second YouTube video that I ever recorded was actually when I was getting ready to drive to this work. I was wearing this blue velvet dress. I think many of you remember this video. I just had so much energy to even make that YouTube video because I was already put together for work. You never know how stewarding well what you have will open up doors later for your actual purpose. And I thought, you know what, let me do some inner work while I'm here. There's a lot of men making some strange comments while I'm working here. Let me learn how to practice my polarizing energy. Let me learn how to set boundaries with coworkers, let me learn how to stand firm in my values even when I'm being tested. Uh, for example, when I started creating TikTok videos, there were coworkers that said they kind of made fun of what I was doing and saying, Oh, you're trying to be a content creator, all of these comments. My inner work was practicing holding my ground, holding myself confidently, even when those comments were made. That's what it means to steward well what you are given in your current position. Other great ways to do this is declutter your home often. Donate things that are taking up space and weighing you down. Unused material possessions weigh down your energy, clean them up. I love, love decluttering. Always when I'm fasting, I go through a decluttering phase. It's just so natural. Do an inventory check of how you're showing up. So maybe you feel, you know what, I've been really tense in my relationships, or I've been passive aggressive and not speaking up in my truth. Or, you know what, I haven't been prioritizing my family. I'm gonna do an inventory check of how I'm showing up, and I'm gonna start doing better in my current position. In the Garden of Eden, it says in Genesis, the Lord took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it. That's Genesis 2.15. And I love that it specifically says, God put the man in the garden. There is a place that God has put you, and it's usually for a season. Your job is to work the land and to keep it. I mean, not to keep it as a possession, but to keep it well. I think that's why we love grooming as women because we have this gorgeous temple that God has given us. And first of all, how lucky are we that we get to be women? Like we get to play with our hair and our skin and make our body feel good and light and energized. How beautiful that God has given us a body to make the healthiest and best temple for Him that it can be. Our body is God's temple. So we are in charge of making it the best that it can. I think that's why it feels good to you to start working out and getting into fitness and eating well because you, your soul knows we are being a good steward of what we are given. Even with anything, you get to be creative. If you feel, but I don't have access to a Whole Foods. That was my problem when I moved to Dubai. I was like, where's my healthy snacks? Am I gonna have to learn to make these from scratch? I had to learn to use what I was given. And even when I didn't have a ton of income, I probably ate healthier than I do now. It's because I used well what I was given. I found ways to uh purchase kale and grilled chicken and sweet potatoes and have it be budget friendly, but still nutrient-dense for my body. So there's always ways to steward well. And there's an excitement in your spirit when you start to do that. In 2 Kings 4 through 7, there's a part here, and what did I write here? Yes, this is where there's a prophet, Elisha, and he goes to the house of a widow, and it says, One day the widow of a member of the group of prophets came to Elisha and cried out, My husband who served you is dead, and you know how he feared the Lord. But now a creditor has come threatening to take my two sons as slaves. What can I do to help you? Elisha asked. Tell me, what do you have in the house? Side note, at this point, this woman was getting ready to die. She goes, You know what? My husband died. I don't have anything, I'm poor, my house is empty, I might as well just get ready to die. But she still asks for help, which I love. God always, always sends resources to help us. When Elisha goes, What do you have in the house? This is her response, nothing at all. Except a flask of olive oil, she replied. And Elisha said, Borrow as many jars as you can from your friends and neighbors, then go into your house with your sons and shut the door behind you. Pour olive oil from your flask into the jars, setting each one aside when it is filled. So she did as she was told. Her sons kept bringing jars to her to her, and she filled one after another. Soon every container was full to the brim. Bring me another jar, she said to one of her sons. There aren't any more, he told her. And then the olive oil stopped flowing. When she told the man of God what had happened, he said to her, Now sell the olive oil and pay your debts, and you and your sons can live on what is left over. That's our father. I love him. Scarcity can't exist when your father is the richest father in the world. This woman had, and notice she responds, I don't have anything. Except I have this olive oil. How many times have I heard have I heard my clients who want to be coaches say this? I don't have any experience. And I ask, have you been in a relationship? Only one. Okay, teach from that one relationship. Alexis, I don't have, um, I don't have any skills to speak about. I don't have any experience with content creation. Okay. Do you have a phone and do you have social media? Good. Use it. Set up a video and send it to me when it's posted. We have so many, like, I just imagine God, everyone that has lived in the Old Testament watching us sit here and be like, but I don't have anything. I don't have any resources. In this world we are living in, that's not an excuse. You can learn about a certain niche on the internet and in three months become an expert on it. What you have is more than enough. And when you use it and you're faithful with it, it will turn into abundance, just as olive oil kept flowing and flowing and filling up all these jars for this woman. I love this story. And so, number five is live as if God's promises are done. That's how you be a good steward. When God told me when I was praying and crying about my finances one time, he told me what you make in a week, Alexis, will be your average tithe. I was like, I'm making $350 in a week. What do you mean that's going to be 10% of my income? That means I'm going to have to be making $3,500 a week. Uh, I don't know about that. That seems crazy. But God told me that loud and clear. It was one of the first times I heard him say a full, clear sentence to me. Fast forward, I think 13 months later, I was giving my first tithe for $350 because I had made my first $3,500 in a week. Then there was a week shortly after that where I had given just over $4,000 as a tithe. That was only 10% of my income from the week. And I just remember sobbing and sobbing and telling God, thank you. You answered your prayers more than I ever or answered my prayers more than I ever expected. What did I do when he told me that? I stopped crying about my finances. I lived as if it was already done. And I said, God, I trust you. I bring the faith and you'll bring the evidence. That's the beautiful thing about God's promises. He's not asking us to do the heavy lifting. He's saying, you bring the faith and let me bring the substance. If we can't even hold the idea of a promise, how will we hold the actual promise? Our faith is a test. It's us saying, God, thank you for giving me this one bag of silver. I am going to be bold, I'm going to go and invest it. I'm going to do something that's outside my comfort zone, but I'm going to move all those qualities of the good steward in the beginning. I'm going to be responsible. I'm going to lead with faith. I'm going to have abundance over scarcity. That is what it means to live as if God's promises are done. It's to live as if when I invest this one bag of silver, it's going to turn into more. And if it doesn't, it's going to, it's going to give me some sort of lesson or some sort of help later on where I see, oh, this actually provided abundance, but not in the way that I expected. Hang on to your vision, journal about it. There's a promise that God has told me that in my last fast, he goes, write out the promise again, because you've lost a little bit of faith. Journal when God tells you, write out when he gives you a promise and repeat it and repeat it and repeat it and live as if it's already done. So this is how to be a good steward. The feminine urge to steward well. I got the name for that episode, and I thought, oh, I'm so excited to talk about it now. It is a feminine urge, right? We have we are the heart of our homes, we are the heart of our relationships. We steward well and it brings that light, it brings God into everything that we touch. That is what it means to be a good steward. It's to be a good servant to him and to lead with faith, to trust that he is abundant, to live as if you are the daughter of the richest father in the world, because you are not just rich with money, but rich with his promises and his love. I love you so much. Love having you here, and I cannot wait to see you in the next episode. Have a beautiful week. Have a blessed week. Always you are free to let me know what episodes you would like to see. And I can't wait to see you again soon.