As I was preparing for messages, I preached the last couple of Sundays, I was reminded of a great quote from John Wooden: “It’s the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen.”
During the messages, I have been keying on the idea of “stewardship,” and let’s be honest that most of the time the word stewardship makes us think of what/how we are spending financially,... yet in my messges I was emphasizing the importance of using our time, talents, and treasure wisely…
And as I thought about Wooden’s quote about attention to details, I was reminded of his process of even teaching his players how to wear their socks properly and lace their shoes to avoid blisters that would slow them down. Which got me thinking that stewardship is not just how we spend, but also the wisdom in what to avoid.
A word that I think could describe what good stewardship looks like is “efficiency.” Being efficient is not just having maximum results, but doing it with minimum wasted effort or expense.
I have often mentioned my dear friend Jason Otter in these weekly devotions. Jason is the best basketball trainer I have ever seen; based upon this idea of playing efficiently, he trains players to get the most out of their play by maintaining proper positioning and limiting wasted movement…
Another example of this concept of efficiency, or stewarding one’s effort happened last week as my daughter Faith was doing an evaluation with another dear friend, Brian Creel of AthElite Nation in Boaz, AL. Like Jason when it comes to hoops, Brian is the best I know at training power and speed. As he put Faith through the evals, he timed her in running the 40. While doing this he filmed the dash and went back to the film to show Faith some of his observations…
Faith ran a very respectable time, but Brian pointed out that she had some issues not only with how her feet were landing… but also with how she was using her arms. In essence, her feet were landing with too much time spent on the ground… het arms were crossing in front of her body a bit creating a slight “falling off-line.” And the basic premise is the quickest distance between two points is a straight line, therefore when “falling off-line” it was causing her to “leak power.” I love that description… she wasn’t breaking rules… just not being as efficient as possible… and thus wasting some time (or she could have had a GREAT time instead of just a respectable time. (Remember efficiency results in MAXIMUM results.)
So, this week it is a familiar challenge… if we took video of your life, how efficient would it look spiritually… in serving God by stewarding your time, talent, and treasure? Are there things that are throwing you “off-line” resulting in less-than-best results? Hebrews 12:1 tells us to not only get rid of sin in our lives but also the “weight” that can cause us to “leak power”!
Ephesians 5:16 exhorts us to “redeem the time,” or to make the most of our time… in essence running straight spiritually in all we do’
Do some self-evaluation of your life and determine if there is “weight” or “sin” that is causing you to “leak power” and be inefficient…
Ephesians 5:15 See then that you walk circumspectly, not
as fools but as wise…
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