A Mentality of Abundance

Poverty vs. Abundance.

I've had this theme clanging around in my head and heart for the past few days.

I've whined often enough in this space about how I'm tired, about how I feel like I'm spinning in circles even though life is charging forward at a dizzying speed. Most of the time I don't feel like I have enough          

• time
• creativity
• patience
• love
• vision
• perspective
• gratitude
• holiness
• energy

I become a miser in my activities because I haven't had enough sleep. I become stingy with the intentional attention I give because there are so many people demanding it right now that there just might not be enough to spread around. I evaluate (judge) whether or not those around me are meeting their Duty Quotas, because the Duties can feel suffocating. I hoard my energy for the bare essentials of day-to-day life because there just isn't enough.

In sharing her struggle with sleep deprivation after her first child was born, Olive Chan writes:

I’d been operating out of a poverty mentality. Afraid that I would run dry, I became a miser, hoarding my energy and limiting my commitments like a cheapskate. My Creator was inviting me to see things differently. God was asking me to adopt a mentality of abundance. To believe God is more than enough. To dare to give generously and lavishly because God’s resources are never ending.

Why is it easier for me to trust God with my finances than my strength for the day?

I am trying to remember that there *is* enough. I worship the One who takes our meagre offerings of loaves and fishes and multiples them beyond count.

If my night was too short, I can choose to start my morning with thanks-giving for the horizontal time I *was* given and look to Him who never sleeps to sustain me. When my children appear bent on mutual destruction before 7:30 am and I can see my day stretching out before me, bleak and jagged, I actually *can* rest in Jesus - He has more than enough (love, grace, joy) for me to draw on as deeply as I need to and to then pour on those around me.


I do not want to operate out of a poverty mentality in any part of my life. I want to dance in the freedom of the truth that I am enough because He is, has, and gives more than enough.