Why Stewardship? Rethinking the Purpose of Money
I’ve been passionate about learning about finance, investing, taxes, and related topics for my entire adult life. I’ve...
I’ve been passionate about learning about finance, investing, taxes, and related topics for my entire adult life.
I’ve always seen myself as being good with money, though I’ve certainly never been perfect with it. For a long time, I thought that since I was getting the big things right that I was free to do with it as I pleased.
But as I’ve learned more about stewardship over the past couple of years, I’ve realized that there’s more to managing money well according to God than simply saving, investing, avoiding unnecessary debt, and making good financial decisions.
Stewardship has changed the way I think about the purpose of money.
And as I’ve worked with Clients from various backgrounds, some religious and some not, I’ve also realized that regardless of the worldview someone approaches money from, the principles of stewardship still apply.
In fact, many of the basic principles of personal finance that we’ve been taught are really principles of stewardship: living within your means, planning for the future, avoiding unnecessary or bad debt, investing wisely, caring for your family, giving generously, and using resources intentionally.
The difference is that stewardship asks a deeper question.
What are we trying to accomplish with the resources we’ve been given?
This realization led me to reframe my entire financial planning process and how I help Clients think about the role of money in their lives.
Instead of viewing money as the goal, I began seeing it for what it truly is: a tool.
Money is like a hammer. It has no purpose on its own. Its value lies in what it helps you build.
Money can be used to build a life of freedom, generosity, security, opportunity, and lasting impact. Or it can be accumulated and spent in ways that ultimately leave little lasting impact or eternal value. Without realizing it, I had been so focused on accumulating that I had overlooked other very important aspects of what my money could be used for.
My goal for my family is to maximize the value of what we’ve been entrusted with through generosity, hospitality, impactful investing, and making thoughtful financial decisions that allow us to make the greatest impact we can.
My goal for Cornerstone Financial Planning is similar.
I want to help others maximize the value of what they’ve been entrusted with according to the goals, priorities, and opportunities unique to their lives.
That means helping people build a financial plan that gives them the freedom and confidence to live intentionally now, rather than waiting for some fuzzy point in the future, while preparing wisely for the years ahead and expanding their ability to make a difference in the world around them.
When I served in the Army as a Physical Therapist, we were often considered a force multiplier.
Our role in returning Soldiers to duty contributed directly to accomplishing the mission. Helping one Soldier recover and return to duty could have an impact far beyond that individual Soldier. It strengthened the unit and increased the effectiveness of the force as a whole.
In many ways, I see my role as a financial planner similarly.
My goal is not simply to help Clients accumulate more money or get the highest investment return (though we certainly aim to optimize that!).
Rather, my highest goal is to help them use their resources more effectively.
Better financial planning can help someone give more generously, support their family, pursue meaningful work, invest in businesses and communities, create opportunities for others, and make decisions with greater confidence.
In that sense, good financial planning can become a force multiplier.
My role is to help Clients increase the effectiveness of the resources they’ve been entrusted with so they can have a greater impact within their families and beyond.
As I began thinking more deeply about stewardship, I started asking myself questions like:
Why did God bless us with this?
At first, I thought the answer was relatively simple.
My wife and I had been working toward financial independence for years. I believed the goal was to reach a point where we could have greater freedom over our time, pour into our family, and support ministries and causes we cared about.
I still believe those are good goals.
But I began realizing there was more to stewardship than simply reaching financial independence, taking care of my family, and continuing to do many of the same things I’d always done.
Stewardship forced me to wrestle with harder questions.
Instead of asking how much I could accumulate, I began asking how much I ought to keep.
Instead of simply pursuing the investments with the highest expected return, I began asking which investments I ought to make and what my investments were helping accomplish.
Instead of automatically reinvesting every dollar of investment income, I began asking what else those returns could be used for.
And perhaps the hardest question of all:
How much is enough?
Rather than thinking “I need to grow my wealth as much as possible,” now I’m thinking more along the lines of:
How much wealth do I need to accumulate?
How much confidence do I need in my financial plan before I’m willing to increase my generosity?
At what point does preparing for our future become an excuse to continue accumulating more? And could that be more about fear than prudent planning?
I don’t think these questions always have simple answers. They certainly aren’t simple for my family, and I’m sure not for you either.
I also don’t think stewardship requires every person or family to arrive at the same answers.
But I do believe they’re questions worth asking. I believe that a lot of our growth happens in the struggle; in the tension. So I encourage you to wrestle with these questions!
The more I’ve thought about stewardship, the more I’ve realized that it changes the purpose of financial planning.
The goal is no longer simply to accumulate as much wealth as possible.
The goal is to manage the resources we’ve been entrusted with wisely.
That means planning for the future.
Providing for our families.
Giving generously.
Investing intentionally.
Avoiding unnecessary financial mistakes.
Enjoying the resources we’ve been given.
And using our time, money, abilities, and opportunities to make an impact in the lives of others.
Good financial planning should help us do all of those things.
It should give us greater clarity about what we have, what we need, and what we’re trying to accomplish.
And when we have greater confidence that we’re preparing wisely for the future, we can have greater freedom to live intentionally and give generously today.
I’m still learning what stewardship looks like in my own life.
I’m sure it’s going to be a lifelong journey rather than a 5K race where I know the finish line.
But the questions I’m asking about money have changed.
I’m thinking less about simply maximizing wealth and more about maximizing the impact of what we’ve been entrusted with.
If you identify with any of the tension in these questions, I encourage you to learn more about stewardship.
A great place to start is Managing God’s Money by Randy Alcorn. It’s practical, easy to read, and provides a helpful biblical framework for thinking about money and possessions.
If you want to go deeper, The Treasure Principle is another of his valuable book that challenges the way we think about generosity, wealth, and eternal impact.
As I continue building out this blog, I’ll write more about what stewardship looks like through the lenses I encounter every day: financial planning, investing, taxes, generosity, real estate, family, work, and the decisions we make about how much is enough.
I won’t pretend to have all the answers.
But I will wrestle with you through the tension.
Because ultimately, good stewardship isn’t about how much we accumulate.
It’s about how wisely and intentionally we use what we’ve been entrusted with.
