SCARCITY TO ABUNDANCE

 

            In my last blog, I quoted a little bit from an article by the Lewis Cetner for church Leadership. One of the things it talked about was stewardship being an instrument of God’s abundance.

            I’ve been focused on stewardship, as it is that time of the year after all! Many churches are in that time when they focus on their financial campaigns, and, hopefully, stewardship. I’ve been spending some time reading A Generous Life: 28 Days of Devotion from Horizons Stewardship. It has a bit of scripture for each day, as well as a story.

            One of the recent days I was reading talking about scarcity and abundance. I have talked about this when I’ve taught or spoken or preached about changing our viewpoint. The devotion talked about buying a bag of candy for their child and adding a few extra pieces that they (the parent) could have. Unfortunately, when they put out their hand for a piece, the child closed up the bag and pulled it away.

            It sounds terrible, but don’t we do that a lot to. We focus on our scarcity. We don’t want to give any away because we might need it. And it’s not just money, but time, ideas and energy as well. I think we live in a mindset, in a life, of scarcity.

            Do you go to bed at night, worried about what you didn’t get done?

            Do you wake up in the morning, lamenting that you didn’t get enough sleep?

            And how many times in between do you think: “if only I had more…..?”

            The devotion quote author Lynne Twist when she said that the opposite of scarcity isn’t abundance! What? That’s what I’ve always said. She says it’s the striving for abundance that keeps us focused on scarcity. To the author, the opposite of scarcity is Sufficiency. God gives us enough…enough money….enough time…enough talent…enough manna…enough grace…enough blessings…enough of everything so we can share the abundance.

            It’s when we forget that God provides enough of everything that we get stuck in the scarcity mindset. And that’s hurtful. To those who should be receiving, but also to us. Take a moment and clench one of your fists tight. Just hold that fist. If you hold it tight enough, long enough, it will start to hurt, doesn’t it? Opening our fists into an open hand releases that pain.

            Opening our scarcity, realizing that God has provided us with more than enough, then we’re sharing everything that God gave us with others.

            Think about how to get out of the mindset of scarcity!

           

            If you wish more information on anything you’ve been reading about, please feel free to contact me at (315) 427-3668 or sranousacctg@twcny.rr.com or susanranous@unyumc.org.  I’d be happy to help or answer any questions.