Stewardship Lesson in an Unlikely Place

Printer from Google Images

I was reminded of stewardship in a very unusual way yesterday. At my internship, the Metro Volunteer Lawyers' copier was getting fixed by the copier surgeon. My poor supervisor wanted to take a bat to the thing like the guys in Office Space, but that would make its problems much worse!! 

After reading the Intern Notebook, I realized I could use the CLS copier in the Volunteer room. We do that as a last resort because the CLS volunteers and employees get first priority for that one. 

So there went little me into the volunteer room with a giant stack of court documents to the CLS copier. As I v-e-r-y carefully fed them into the copier, I said, "Oh, please be nice, copier, you're not mine!" meaning, CLS would be mad if I broke their copier. 

Suddenly I realized I was sort of a steward of their copier. I'm a steward of MVL's stuff too because I'm a volunteer, but I felt an extra sense of 'I need to be careful because I don't normally have rights to this machine while I'm with MVL.' 

As I copied the court documents, God and I got into a discussion about stewardship. Do I treat what He gives me as carefully as I treated the CLS copier, or do I just assume He will fix something if I break it, or do I think, "No, that's mine." I took a Dave Ramsey class with Boaz and of course I thought about my finances. When I become a paralegal, will I just treat them like God will keep giving me more, or will I be careful with them like I am learning to be careful with my student loan refund? Will I think, "Oh, I can fix it because it's mine, or will I be careful because it's God's?" More importantly, will I continue to be grateful to God for what He has given me? Just as I was grateful CLS had allowed in their rules that MVL staff and volunteers could use their copier when ours was down, I have to be grateful for what God gives me because it's a gift, yet it is ultimately His. 

Little lessons can come from very strange places :) 

And yes, in case readers were wondering, I was able to copy all the court documents yesterday :D :D