Scarcity and God’s Economy {Day 15}

Guess what? With today’s post we are halfway there! Those who receive this in your inbox, hold on, the volume of emails from me will soon slow down!

So let’s get going!  I want to start us off with some reflection questions.

What does our fear say about our belief of who God is? When we act, think, respond with fear, what are we saying we hold to be accurate of who he is?

How do our actions answer these questions:  Who do we say God is? What do we say to be true about his character?

Do they point ourselves and others to a God who is trustworthy and generous? One who is loving and protecting and will provide? Is he one who will care for our needs and offer redemption and restoration?

Or do our actions signal that we believe in a God who is holding out on us? One who we must be frightened of and never fully trust. That he is one who doesn’t really see us or know us and will not be there to protect us.  That we are really on our own and must do the best we can.

Does the same lie from the garden have us questioning God’s goodness? When we begin questioning if he is truly for us, fear seeps in because we realize we aren’t enough, we are too much, we will be alone, we will never be understood. All the ways we fear.

Take a look at this quote from The Soul of Money by Lynne Twist:

“For me and for many of us, our first waking thought of the day is I didn’t get enough sleep. The next one is I don’t have enough time. Whether true or not, that thought of not enough occurs to us automatically before we even think to question or examine it. We spend most of the hours and the days of our lives hearing, explaining, complaining or worrying about what we don’t have enough of…Before we even sit up in bed, before our feet touch the floor, we’re already inadequate, already behind, already losing, already lacking. And by the time we go to bed at night, our minds are racing with a litany of what we didn’t get or didn’t get done that day. We go to sleep burdened by those thoughts and wake up to that reverie of lack. This internal condition of scarcity, this mind set of scarcity, lives at the very heart of our jealousies, our greed, our prejudice and our arguments with life.”

Although this was not written with the goal of thinking about God, it heightens your awareness of scarcity and how that underlies and often undermines our ability to rest and to trust. When we have an accurate assessment of who God is, we rest. We trust. We know there will be enough. He will be enough. It is not all up to us. Scarcity drains us and makes us try harder. Fear easily surfaces when we are focused on not getting or having enough.

Oh, but God. But God. He enters in and changes the landscape. Changes our stories. He makes us lie down in green pastures. He grows us into oaks of righteousness. He says we do not need to worry about tomorrow. He gives manna. Our shoes don’t wear out.

With God we see his resources are not limited. There are no shortages. Scarcity is not part of his economy. The eyes of our heart see this truth. There is no lack. There is no want. There is no fear.

I am participating in Write 31 Days. Click right here to see all the amazing topics!  I am writing on 31 Beauty Full Days.  You can read the intro post here.  And you can also always click on the button on the sidebar to see all posts in the series.

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