The In Trust Center’s Wise Stewards initiative in-person conference opens every year with devotions. This is an edited version of the opening devotion of 2025.
Dr. Rebekah Basinger, the project director, has spoken about the power of questions, so I’ll focus on a few key questions from the book of Genesis. There are lessons to draw from the story of Adam and Eve, the serpent, the forbidden fruit, and the first sin as we consider stewardship and governance. The story in short: God gave the people a mission to steward: to tend to the garden with a fairly simple rule – eat anything except for the fruit of one tree.
Then the serpent asks the first question presented in the Bible, starting with, “Did God really say …?” The serpent tempts the people to disobey God’s command and become like God.
The second question the Bible records is asked by God, after the people had failed in upholding the mission: Where are you?
The first question is a temptation every person and organization face. In our context, it is the temptation to leave the God-given mission for something that seems more attractive or seems to be more fruitful. In reality, turning back on the mission means pursuing something we weren’t created for or meant to be.
The second question – Where are you? – isn’t about physical location as God surely knew where the humans were. This was really a question of assessment. Could the people answer? They had to get over their fear and failure. Then, they had to ask the harder question of how they were keeping and stewarding that mission. While God surely knew that as well, the humans had to answer for themselves, just as we do.
A congregant recently asked me what would have happened if the humans had been honest. We don’t know. They hid from the truth, literally and figuratively. The man blamed God, essentially, for “that woman that you gave me.” The question that congregant asked me sticks with me: What would have happened if they had asked the One who created them for guidance? What would have happened had they been honest?
The question of temptation and the question of “Where are you?” are also questions of calibration: To whom and to what are we aligned? These questions help guide us in this work because they force us to ask where are we and how are we doing on the mission to which we’ve been called.
The Questions
The question of temptation and the question of “Where are you?” are also questions of calibration: To whom and to what are we aligned?
