By Puja Lamsal
This summer, I am interning with the Moravian Ministries Foundation in America, and much of my first two weeks have been spent conducting research and working on grant-related projects. While researching organizations preparing to apply for grants through MMFA this year, I came across a line on the website of Christians for Action Development and Renewal that I found especially profound: “Generosity is our privilege.”
The sentence not only affirmed my personal belief that giving is an opportunity not obligation; it also challenged one of the most enduring misconceptions about generosity: the idea that it flows in only one direction. Throughout history, the world has witnessed countless forms of giving: charity, reparations, philanthropy, donations, mutual aid. Some forms center the giver and their virtue, while others honor the dignity and humanity of the receiver. Too often, however, giving is framed as a favor bestowed by those who “have” upon those who “do not,” carrying with it an unspoken yet tangible sense of entitlement or moral superiority. The assumption becomes that only the recipient benefits.
But no one arrives at the ability to give on their own. To be in a position to extend generosity, one must first have received something themselves — encouragement, opportunity, faith, mentorship, love, patience, support, care. Long before we are capable of pouring into others, someone or something has poured into us. Moreover, our lives are shaped so profoundly by the environment and circumstances that we are never truly standing on equal ground. Some are born into stability, resources, and opportunities that others spend their entire lives struggling to create. Yet inequity is not only external. Human beings also enter the world with vastly different gifts, talents, instincts, and capacities — rare and deeply personal abilities that distinguish one life from another. Achievement may require discipline and effort, but it is also inseparable from timing, access, support, and fortune.
This is where stewardship becomes such a powerful framework for understanding generosity. Stewardship asks us to recognize that whatever we possess — whether time, talent, influence, resources, or knowledge — was never meant to belong to us alone. It reframes giving not as charity from a higher position, but as responsibility born from gratitude. Stewardship is a dynamic, multi-dimensional way of thinking about generosity that reminds us giving is rooted in having first been sustained by others. Few days ago, Laura (MMFA’ Vice President) and I reflected on how differently people define stewardship today and how language itself evolves over time. The word has been stretched, debated, and reinterpreted across generations, yet its essence remains remarkably intact: stewardship is the ability to understand that what is yours is also connected to others. It is the awareness that our lives are interdependent.
In 2018, Tom Brady shared a reflection that captures a similar idea beautifully:
“If you happen to be very lucky, when you are 10 years old, you will have people in your life who tell you the world is anything you want it to be, and you will believe them. And those people will never put limits on your abilities… if you’re lucky, you may get picked last, you may ride the bench, and many times the team may move on without you, and you come to recognize that, in return, you are given the chance to earn the greatest edge of all and one that can never be taken away.”
What makes this reflection so striking is its honesty about luck. Not luck as an excuse to dismiss hard work, but luck as an acknowledgment that success is never created in isolation. Even perseverance itself is often nurtured by people who believed in us before we believed in ourselves. As I write this, I think of my own coach, who reminds me constantly that my ceiling is yet to be reached when I worry that my current form is all there is to my potential. Every day I am reminded that to live with a spirit of stewardship is to recognize both truths at once: that effort matters deeply, and that none of us succeed entirely alone. Social conditions, relationships, timing, talent, and opportunity shape our lives every single day. So, when we find ourselves with a little more — more access, more security, more wisdom, more influence, more abundance — the question becomes what we choose to do with it.
The understanding that the purpose of our existence, our time, our treasure, and our talent extend beyond ourselves is at the heart of stewardship, but it very well can be the center of our being. Let us all recognize what a privilege it is to give. What we have been blessed with is ours to care for, to use with intention, and to steward with responsibility. And when the time comes, it is also ours to pass forward in trust, ensuring that what once sustained us may, in turn, sustain others.
This article was written by Puja Lamsal, MMFA’s summer intern. Puja is originally from Pokhara, Nepal, and is a student at Salem College, double majoring in Professional Writing and Political Science.
