I look around the room, utterly baffled at the sheer quantity of clothes and accessories to organize. Simply put, my workaholic brain could not find a concrete plan to organize the room into a place livable. Until my father nags about the unhygienic nature of my room, I don’t have any motivation to clean it up. I am an overall tidy person. I conquer daily messes at night before heading to bed. However, I learned the hard way that daily messes turn into a mountain heap of trash before the week is over. I figured out my problem: I have too much stuff.
Over spring break, I went to New York City Urban Project, a Christian social justice leadership camp. NYCUP was designed to teach young Christian adults in college to pray daily and to analyze prejudices toward people who are different from me. One of the topics at NYCUP was stewardship. Stewardship is the act of supervising and allocating resources. In an online course, I learned about the Fair Trade organization that specializes in providing the producer countries a better trading options.
With my Intervarsity family who went to NYCUP, we watched a documentary called “True Cost” that showed the horrors of fast fashion for the countries that produce clothes, especially the workers who are subject to terrible working conditions. I started wondering if I really needed the new pair of jeans when I have twenty pairs already. I started thinking about the dust-collecting items in my dorm that I never use. Is more stuff really better?
In a Christian small group meeting, I studied Proverbs 31, where there is a portrayal of the noblewoman who knows how to steward her resources for her family and servants. I never thought much about what it would mean to actually steward resources for other people. I realized for myself that buying clothes at a higher price means that I would not be able to afford multiple new clothes, but that’s okay because I have a lot of clothes already.
I believe that many people have a hard time changing their lifestyle because going green is inconvenient. However, I believe not only that people should help out people in need, but that stewardship is the first task man was given.
Now, I challenge you to think of ways that you could steward your resources. I no longer find it inconvenient if I cannot buy many new clothes. Rather, I like the challenge of figuring out what is important to me and saving up for those expenses.