Is there enough?

You’ve probably heard the concept of abundance verses scarcity before.  It’s the idea of how we approach God’s world and his work.   Having been a part of many congregations and several non-profit organizations, I have seen how each of them leans to one side or another.

If life is approached from the perspective of scarcity, sharing isn’t possible.  The approach is that “we” (whether we means our family, our church, our team, our organization) need to hoard everything without giving it away.  We hold on to things tightly thinking that we don’t know where the next bit of energy …. the next dollar … even the next idea will come from.

The opposite of this is abundance… where we approach life believing that God has everything we need.  He has all the resources at our disposal and it isn’t up to us to hoard them.  The children of Israel noticed this with the manna — if they tried to keep it it was a sign that they didn’t believe God who promised to give them what they needed — and the manna got gross (for lack of a better description).  In Exodus 16 we read the story:

In his instructions to them about the manna  Moses said , “No one is to keep any of it until morning.”

However, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell. So Moses was angry with them.

I love this passage from Exodus 36… 

Moses called Bezalel and Oholiab and every craftsman in whose mind the Lord had put skill, everyone whose heart stirred him up to come to do the work.  And they received from Moses all the contribution that the people of Israel had brought for doing the work on the sanctuary. They still kept bringing him freewill offerings every morning, so that all the craftsmen who were doing every sort of task on the sanctuary came, each from the task that he was doing, and said to Moses, “The people bring much more than enough for doing the work that the Lord has commanded us to do.

Much more than enough!  That is what happens when we all approach life from a spirit of abundance.   When each of us, with arms open, brings all that we have …. Then there is much more than enough to get whatever we need to get done done.  The verses above say that  they still kept bringing Moses their offerings every morning.  

We are really making progress in our community with Vision 30 and CarePortal and our other programs even in  the midst of a pandemic.  Stuff is happening — there is momentum — word is getting around and the hard work of so many is paying off.  It’s really cool to be a part of all that God is doing.  It is a LOT but it is good!

So let’s start our Friday knowing that if all of us keep bringing God all of us … every morning — that there will be much more than enough … for our families, our churches, our neighbors, our organization, and our community, 

MUCH more than enough!