Have you ever noticed how Jesus embodies “abundant life” in the gospels? He feeds 5,000 and then 4,000. He goes around to people suffering from scarcity – scarcity of health, scarcity of acceptance, scarcity of power, scarcity of understanding – and replaced it with abundance.
Same thing with God. God not only initiates abundance in the first chapter of Genesis by calling forth plants and fish and birds and animals, but God promises continued abundance by commanding them to “increase and multiply.” Then God rests on the Sabbath because there is enough.
Without a doubt there are man-made distribution problems in this life – economies and politics leave out many people who are in need, or those in power take so much that there’s not enough left for others – still there’s an abundance rather than a scarcity. Distribution problems need to be solved and opposed rather than accepted as just the way things are.
Tim Sanders, a business consultant who was once the head of human resources for Yahoo, urges us to not think of ourselves in terms of what we don’t have. If we do so, our life and/or business will begin a downward spiral. Ours is to stop focusing on scarcity and start concentrating on whatever abundance we do have. Build on our strengths rather than bemoan our shortages.
In church we call this focus on abundance “finding one’s niche.” No congregation can do it all, but given a church’s particular gifts and strengths, it can find its niche in its community. Given Grace’s abundance, what do you think our niche is? -DJ
No comments:
Post a Comment